Friday, September 7, 2007

The Last Laugh

Blog Post: The Last Laugh

This is a picture from my show at September Crown. While giving 2 shows and joining in on that event where everyone lives as if they were in the past, a crazy notion occurred to me.

A little set up first --My father is a merchant there...so he's a little less interested in living the past than your average SCA member. You see, if he can keep the lights on longer, he can sell more--although my father really would rather teach you how to weave rather than sell you tons of equipment for it. You can't teach without lights either. Generators are noisy and smelly. Gas stuff presents a fire hazard. Top it of...he needs electricity to sleep with a filter machine forcing air at his face. So my father put a solar panel on the roof of his trailer (which he hides with fabulous painted backdrops) and attached it to 4 storage batteries. It occurred to me that it was quite a lot of work to stay functional like that--and probably expensive although I didn't ask. Everywhere I looked people there were struggling to live without electricity and still have fun or make money. All of a sudden I was glad my puppet show requires no electricity.

That's when my crazy notion hit me...you see, I’m an environmental engineer. We’re all about where the world is going. We know why wars happen. We remember what the world is conveniently forgetting—the days of oil are coming to a close, my friends. We’re past peak oil now, and to maintain our lavish American lifestyle we must make wars to steal oil from others. There is a finite amount left and it is seriously going away fast…places that were quagmires that weren’t worth American lives ten years ago are now the only places standing in between us and the end of American life as we’ve known it. Electricity will soon become the single largest bill we pay…which means plunking your kids down in front of the brain-drain box will soon become way too expensive. So what will you do to save money?

That’s when us Puppeteers will rule.

In reality, we require no electricity at all to run—heck we’ve been working without out it for hundreds and hundreds of years! Oh sure, we like it now, but technically we don’t need it. How long will it be before handing your kid a bit of money and sending them to the rental office of your apartment complex for a show will be a matter of course? That’s when I’ll stop being an engineer and start putting my most sellable skill to work. People will be forced to realize how much better puppets are than TV. I don’t know about you…but I’m looking forward to it.

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