If you've heard Richard Pryor's takeoff on 2001:A Space Odyssey and don't think
it's one of the funniest damn things you've ever heard, I don't wanna know ya.

This isn't about Richard Pryor, but his bit (just him and a microphone) made me think
about the film and how much I couldn't wait when I was a kid to see if the future
would look as cool as the movie made it seem like it would.

I mean here was a space movie without galactic battles, or monsters or
any of the stuff that makes space movies cool. Here was a movie that
made you think. You didn't really know what the hell was going on, but
boy, was it snazzy looking. Hardly anybody talked in it. Probably the
one with the most lines was the computer, HAL9000 (the Richard Pryor bit
focused on the main scene with HAL), the movie moved reeeeeaaaaal slow,
but was like ballet, or poetry that didn't use words.

Here was a movie with all this:

1. A giant rock that the movie implies evolved apes into people millions of years ago.
2. A moonbase. It seemed to be a joint effort by at least the U.S. and Soviet Union. 
   This was during the Cold War, remember.
3. Another monolith (that's a big rock, for ditto-heads) on the moon.
4. A space mission past Jupiter.
5. A talking computer that flips out.
6. Really long psychedelic scenes that don't make sense. You just have to go with it.
7. Great space walking scenes.
8. Another monolith past Jupiter that evolves a guy named Dave into the next step beyond human.

A really great looking picture with cool space shots and lots of great, acid-trippy special effects.
I didn't know what the hell it was about when it first came out in 1968 (I was 12 then), but it was
a hell of a ride. And boy,  I couldn't wait to see what the real 2001 was going to be like.

Well here we are, 2001 and here's what we have:

1. A guy in the White House with the brain power of a giant rock.
2. An almost non-existent space program. No bases on the moon.
    Part of the world hates our guts and the rest think we're a huge joke.
3. Microsoft and software that flips out for no reason and no warning..
4. A president who talks like he's on a long, heavy duty acid trip and
5. Should be shot off in the next spaceship to take a long spacewalk past Jupiter.
6. A president and cabinet who think it's 1951 again and need a monolith
    to evolve to the level of the apes in 2001.

I am deeply let down and bummed out. Life didn't imitate art.
But at least there's still Richard Pryor.