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GREAT DARKNESS |
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A Crisis of Biblical Proportions:
California Faces the Darkness
By CHUCK McFADDEN
of TheColumnists.com
And it came to pass that in the second year of the third millennium the Great Darkness came to the Golden State.
And lo, the people were aggrieved, tearing their hair and rending their clothing. They kicked their air conditioners and shook their fists.
"Woe is us," the people cried. "Our computers do not glow, neither do they compute; our air conditioners condition not. Oh woe, woe."
And in his court, the king waxed wroth.
"If we succeed not in restoring electricity, my political career goeth into the toilet," he told his courtiers. "We must do something, even though we roll through the Valley of the Blackouts."
And the courtiers scratched their heads and thought and thought. "Oh woe," they said. "We seeketh answers, but they come not. Woe, woe."
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Except for one, the craftiest of them all.
"Sire, it has now become obvious to all but the most dim-witted that blackouts are here for a while, no matter what we do," he told the king. "So, when life hands you lemons…."
"You maketh lemonade!" the King rejoined, his face brightening as though a 100-watt bulb had lit. (But of course it hadn't.)
"But pray, courtier, how do we make the lemonade whereof you speak?" he asked.
The courtier lowered his voice and whispered into the king's ear.
"Sire, well we know that a Californian will make a fad out of anything. Any group of people who will pay $2 a bottle for designer water is ripe, ripe, ripe for what I have in mind."
"And what is that?" asked the king, frowning, because he had been known to bring bottles of water to staff meetings.
"We must bring to the attention of people the advantages of no electricity," the courtier said. "Verily, we must make them rejoice as they swelter."
"How?" the king asked.
"For starters, we will generate endless newspaper stories about how families will get to know each other better because the television set will be silent," the courtier said. "They will talk about how husbands and wives will begin talking to one another again. We will tell the people that California is a rustic paradise, where families sit around shucking corn together and women will have quilting bees by lamplight, yup, yup. Norman Rockwell resurgent.
"And get this, sire. There will be more sex; she will be wearing a scanty outfit because it's 98 degrees in the family room; verily, there's no TV; he looks at her; she looks at him. Va-Voom."
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"More divorces, too," said the king, who was no dummy. "When they start holding conversations instead of looking at TV, some couples find out they can't stand one another."
"Sadly true, sire. Remember eggs and omelets," the courtier said. "But here's the biggie, sire: Doing without electricity will become the giddy new trend among the Hollywood/New York fashionables. Think about it, sire. If there's anything we're good at, it's making something awful into something trendy. I mean, taketh a look at women's shoes."
"I can see it now," the king murmured. "When the sun starts to blaze down big time this summer, there will be rappers hammering about how we don't need no m____f____ electricity. Letterman will do a list of the 10 dumbest things about people who tell light bulb jokes. Leno: How many Californians does it take to light a dark room? Three: One to find the candle, one to find the match, and one to trip over the coffee table."
The courtier nodded enthusiastically.
"Vanity Fair will do lavish layouts on the homes of actors, focusing on their Coleman lanterns. There will be interviews with movie stars about how they still manage to live nicely with only the basics--slow-roasted tofu haunches, organic cocaine by candlelight, groupies waving palm fronds to keep the air circulating… forsooth, there is no telling where it will all end," he said.
"The middle class will get into the act once they see what's going on," the king mused. "Hostesses will compete to see who will have the most elaborate candles; beeswax futures will soar. Baking in wood-burning stoves will be the preferred means of being au courant."
"It could save dot coms!" the courtier cried. "On windup Victrolas, Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" will be big in August; so will Leroy Anderson's "Sleighride." I'll bet we could even move a few million copies of Ella Fitzgerald's "It's Too Darn Hot" for the irony trade. Let us make haste to get a dot com to contract to instantly manufacture Victrolas in Taiwan!"
"I will call Martha Stewart and ask her to show us how to turn unused light bulbs into Christmas tree ornaments!" the king cried.
"In Washington, there will be an appropriation of $300 billion to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to develop wood-burning air conditioning!" the courtier sang.
"Deprivation chic! I love it!" cried the king. "Maketh it so!"
The courtier left to begin issuing the necessary orders and talk to the news media.
The king was left alone
with his thoughts.
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"Won't last, of course," he thought. "Giddy fads never do, and we're going to start building power plants like you won't believe. By the time 2004 rolls around, pumping water by hand at the kitchen sink will lose its glamour. We'll head back to the bright lights and our old habits. Oh, but who cares. Right now, we need to get through the electricity crisis, and the courtier's right. If ever we needed a fad, we need one now.
"But someone's eventually going to be stuck with 750,000 Ralph Lauren washboards."
© 2001 by Charles M. McFadden. The illustrations are from IMSI's Master/Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
Former reporter McFadden
lives in an un-air-conditioned house in Oakland, forsooth.
You
can comment on this column or contact Chuck McFadden with an
email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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