March 11, 2002
Friday, I was in a coffee shop with my brother- spending some time with him before I leave for Japan. We were both being silly. I wanted to use the opportunity to pitch my new thesis: Fred Flintstone had a quality of life better than that of George Jetson.
"But how can you say that?" He asks, interested.
"Well, look at the work-environment of Fred Flintstone versus that of George Jetson. Fred works in the quarry all day..."
"Doing back-breaking labor." He interjects.
"No, the brontosaurus
he rides is doing the labor. But the point is: Fred has fairly good job security
at the quarry and most importantly, he has a healthy relationship with his boss,
Mr. Slate. Sure, sometimes they ruffle each others' feathers, but Fred isn't terrified
of Mr. Slate. Now George on the other hand... he works in a closed office-space
with stale, pumped-in air. What does he do? He pushes buttons all day until his
button-pushing finger is throbbing and sore. And, worst of all, he lives under
constant fear of that midget Hitler, Mr. Spacely. I mean, every episode,
Spacely has singled-out George for sadistic games that go above and beyond cruel."
I sip my latté and continue. "Every episode, it's monotony: 'Jet-son!
You're fired!' You start to wonder if Spacely has any other employees to
beat-up on. Or if George can even get another job. The employer-employee
relationship in the Jetsonian workplace is that of master and slave, labor unions
must've been weakened considerably. Respecting employees has gone the way of the
dinosaur. George is just so much chattel to be chewed-up and spat-out by vast,
inhuman forces beyond his control.
"Furthermore, the Jetson household
doesn't have all those friendly, wisecracking domestic-chore animals making jests
and japes. It must be quite lonely to be surrounded by the cold, unthinking eyes
of the Jetsonian house-cleaning devices all day."
"But what about all the dinosaur dung that would be lying-around?" He asks.
"The domestic-chore animals in The Flintstones seem to clean-up after themselves. Astro would never touch his own mess, as he's a lazy, presumptuous cur of a mongrel. And after work, George comes-home to his idle, demanding wife and his thankless, dim-witted floozy of a daughter."
My brother laughs curtly. "Yes, Judy Jetson is a dim-wit floozy... You could get her into the sack by giving her a piece of candy, I bet." He then does an impromptu imitation of Astro: "Rey, Rorge!"
I grin. "Sure, the Jetsons have better technology, but at what price I ask? They've surrounded themselves with ill-tempered machinery and choking bureaucracy. It's as if the worst of Terry Gilliam's Brazil has fused with the World of Tomorrow exhibit from the 1939 World's Fair. Human relationships have given-way to ones and zeroes. The machines don't serve humanity, humanity serves the machines! George's career is working at Spacely Sprockets... the competitor of Cogswell Cogs. Everyone seems to be hard at work unwittingly adding to the nightmare by providing more nuts and bolts and camshafts. This is the biggest irony of all because it is George who is unknowingly a sprocket in this dystopian and dehumanizing technological terror that awaits us all in the year 2064! The world of the Jetsons is a hysterical warning- not of the future that will be, but of the future that could be!" I wave my hands ominously. "OOoooOOOooohhh!" I added for good measure.
"I never thought of it that way... I think Fred's world is more violent; people are always carrying clubs around. And what of the hunger aspect? The Flintstones all need to eat huge quantities of food to stave-off hunger. I mean- the pterodactyl eggs are as big as beach-balls. The brontosaurus ribs are so big, they invariably tip-over Fred's car!" Then, he snarls. "But of course, the Jetsons are blasphemous."
"Blasphemers? How?" I ask with a smile. My brother is certainly not religious- he is someone who routinely refers to Christianity as 'that sky-god cult'.
"They live among the clouds." He replies with a wave of his hand. "They arrogantly flit-about the sky like winged angels on zephyrs. They create foodstuffs from the aether like some magician's trick, impudently cheapening the role of Creator. Where is religion in their future? It has long died-out. Their memory of the savior Jesus Christ has been cast-down and forgotten. The soulless Jetsonian hew-mons extend their life-spans to be comparable to that of Abraham or Methuselah... not through prayer and faith, but through some form of necromancy or sorcery!" He sips his coffee. "And worst of all, these unholy thaumaturges breathe life into their cold, metal automatons. Only the Creator may create life! Rosie the house-keeping robot? She's nothing more than a Frankensteinian mechanical Golem... a rolling abomination. A dead-eyed, cynical mockery of the book of Genesis!"
"Boy, you play just one record backwards and you think the devil's talking at you." I interject with a smile.
He replaces his cup on the saucer. "The Jetsons blur the distinction between man and God. They'll all deserve to smolder in the fires of eternal damnation for their hubris!" He thumps his fist on the table, rattling the spoons. "Blasphemy!"
Someone at the next table overheard us and interrupted. "Oh fer Chrisssakes- It's only a damn cartoon!"
We both burst-out laughing. Yup- I'm gonna miss him...
Tracy Update: The next day, I had dinner with Sally and Marcus (I'm not surprised if you don't recognize their names... I haven't seen them since the summer of 1999). They recently moved-in to a city not too far from where I live and they invited me over to visit for the weekend before I leave the country. If you recall, Sally was the person who helped introduce me to Tracy, the second woman I slept with.
So, I drove-over. It only took a few hours to get there, but I was glad to see them both. We had steak (grilled outside in the snow) garlic mashed potatoes (I think everything tastes jazzier with garlic- even jazz.) and cake- a big, chocolate bastard of a cake.
After dinner, I asked what had become of Tracy. I hadn't heard anything from her since... um, 1997 I think. Which is when she got engaged, if you'll recall. Much to my chagrined befuddlement.
Sally told me that Tracy was now a head-nurse in an assisted-living home and was making a fairly good salary. She has a 3-year old son and still lives with her husband. "I got an email from her a few months ago saying hello. But I haven't heard from her since- I think she's pretty busy."
Marcus asked Sally at that point: "Are they still having problems?"
"What problems?" Sally asked back.
"You know what problems I'm talking about." Marcus replied. "Six months ago, you were on the phone all night that one time..."
"She didn't mention anything about it, I think they're over it." She cut him off in mid-sentence.
All the while, I'm thinking: "what problems? Tracy and her husband are having problems? They've been giving each other a little 'knuckle-chat', maybe?" It wasn't polite for me to ask for more information, but I guess it's safe for me to assume something: Tracy once had or is having notable marital friction with the man she got engaged to a mere two weeks after she and I slept together.
I felt no sympathy for her. In fact, I felt an odd level of satisfaction. Is that distastefully schadenfreude of me, or what? Two or three years ago, I never would've felt that way when hearing about a couple's marital problems. Maybe there was a time in the past where I would've felt sorry for Tracy- but no longer. It was she who pursued this end. Sorry, I'm all sympathied-out as far as American women are concerned. They can get blackened eyes and broken noses from their dearly beloved, asshole men for all I care. Injury resulting from women putting themselves in harms' way is no basis for my sympathy at all.