It's been brought to my attention recently
that there's this thing called Y2K. I know about it because
everywhere I go people just can't stop talking about it. Even that
Cheerios breakfast cereal has gone to the trouble of becoming Y2K
compliant. What exactly that means I couldn't really tell you, though
I am sure it does make someones breakfast a might cheerier |
 | I had to pay one
of these bespectacled, eggheaded fellas his weight in gold
just to be able to say "yup, that'll work. Your computers
now understand that time continues to move forward in spite of
the lack of years that start with "19". Seems a little like racketeering
to me...first I have to pay out a whole truckload of dollars
for the machine in the first place and then I find out there's
some magical problem that I now have to spend more money to
fix. What's next, Bill Gates coming to my house asking
for $100 not to burn it down? |
|
You know, I met Bill Gates.
I ran into him at one of the many secret societies of which I am
a member. He came over to say hello while I was playing Chinese
Checkers with Rupert Murdoch and Suge Knight.
At first I thought it was one of
those Little Rascals kids all grown up -- maybe that Baretta
fella. I made some general comments about cockatoos and
keeping one's eye on the sparrow, but he didn't seem to understand
what I was talking about. What was the deal with that show
anyway? He had a cockatoo but was supposed to keep
his eye on the sparrow -- is he protecting the cockatoo
from the sparrow? Are there viscious sparrows on the loose
that we must all be wary of? What sort of bird-infused
hell did this man live in? |
Watch out |
Well, by the time I figured
out this wasn't the guy who dropped his pants on the Tonight
Show on a regular basis, but was, in fact, richer than the cheese
tort at the Friar's, Gunter announced that the
sherry had been poured and the ultimate fighting match was
about to start. Boy Howdy, did we have a time! That
Gates fella was alright. Not much of a conversationalist,
but the man enjoys semi-legal hand-to-hand combat just like
any man. |
 Suge, Me, and Bill |
Now this Y2K thing is a perfect
example of what happens when you don't rock the boat. Thousands,
maybe millions of people seeing the big problem on the horizon,
knowing full well there'd be a problem a few years down the road,
but why stick your neck out? Why try to fix it now?
Someone else'll catch it. Worked
out pretty well for the computer folks, but I've got to tell you
it's been a big giant pain in the keister for the rest of us.
Never mind the billions of dollars we've had to pay them to fix
a problem they created -- there've also been the TV Movies
and incessant blather of every survivalist yahoo this side
of the Blue Ridge Mountains to deal with. |
|
Did we really need another reason to think
the world was going to end in the year 2000? Wasn't Beneath the
Planet of the Apes enough? Frankly, there've been days I thought
the idea of hanging out in black robes worshipping a big A-Bomb didn't
sound all that bad.
You see, that's what apocalypses do.
They sneak up on you. You don't get the rivers of blood,
the rivers simply run dry. Frogs don't start falling
from the sky, they grow a third eye and start speaking in
iambic pentameter. Computers don't go crazy and try to impregnate
Julie Christie, they just threaten to shut down unless Julie
goes down to the Office Max and buys new software.
The point is, if someone had opened
up their cakehole in one of them meetings and said "hey,
we've got to fix this 19 problem", maybe we'd have taken
a little time to decide whether or not we needed to put everything
on computers. For example, how hard was it to run the generators
before? Seems like we get just as many blackouts as we did
before they were on computers, and the people that ran them then
could be convinced to work New Years. |
Julie Christie |
Everybody's afraid to speak up. Time
to get over that, folks and start rocking the boat. Don't
worry about the boat. If a boat can't take a little rocking it
ain't that much of a boat. You might want to get on a bigger
one. I prefer cabin cruisers myself -- Dom DeLuise can dance
the night away with one of them Kate Moss style supermodels and
not have to worry about them tossing their dinner overboard (well, not
on purpose anyway). |
 |
Just like I say in my book Alex
Ray Portrait of a Rebel, you've got to be a rebel if you want
to succeed in this world. Oh...did I mention I
wrote a book? Even recorded some of the most important
parts for you to hear. Straight from my mouth to your brain
with little to no discomfort involved. Rocking
the Boat is what it's about people, so this New Years
Eve, make sure you rock hard. Get out of the house.
Drink a little bit. And when midnight comes, don't waste
your time worrying about the lights; just give someone a big
kiss and start singing. Kissing is better with
the lights out anyway and everyone knows the words to Auld
Lang Syne (well the important ones anyway). |
|
# posted by Alex Ray : Saturday, December 25, 1999
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