Thrift Shop Find No. 2
The Legendary Criswell Predicts! Your Incredible Future (c. 1970); Horoscope records
If you've seen the films of auteur schlockmeister Edward D. Wood Jr. (or, for that matter, last year's Ed Wood biopic directed by Tim Burton), you know Criswell. A self-described phony TV psychic who slept in a coffin, Criswell occasionally turned up as a guest on The Tonight Show back in the 1960s. But Criswell made his truly lasting contribution to posterity with his mood-setting narration in Wood's immortal classic, Plan 9 From Outer Space. Propped inside a coffin, Criswell elegantly summarizes Wood's ambitious cinematic themes: "My friends, can your hearts stand the shocking strain of. . . Grave Robbers from Outer Space?!"
In between hosting his own TV show, conjuring up a couple books (Criswell Predicts Your Next Ten Years!) and carousing with Wood's band of merry washouts, "Cris" managed to produce at least one vinyl record of scarifying predictions. Without further ado, then, we present written transcripts for your perusal.
John Whalen
"I predict the day of severity in dress will soon be at hand, almost Puritanical in style, with no beads, no jangles, no bracelets. Men and women will wear exactly the same makeup, the same style of hair dress, and, if required, the same type of wig. I was not allowed to say on television, radio, or have it appear in my column, as the advertisers would clomp down on me, and clomp very heavily."
"I further predict: The new age of nudity for the human body will be glorified. Body designs, self painted, will take up most of your spare time. Women will decorate their breasts with startling colors, while men will decorate their genitals. Those who are politically orientated will always print body slogans on themselves, and this will take [the] place of the present-day bumper stickers. Subdued colors will be used in the cloth, but riotous colors will be painted on your body."
"I predict full medical attention by vending machines. I predict in the future it will be highly possible to have an appendix operation, give birth to a child, or receive and abortion, have a heart transplant, a hair transplant, or even a brain transplant--by vending machine. Your own weight will be controlled by vending machine, for ten cents worth of radaric rays."
"I predict embalming by radar, where the body is turned to indestructable stone. The body will be placed in a fiberglass casket, which does not corrode, rot, or burn. Your great, great, great grandchildren will be able to look upon your countenance and see how handsome you really were. However, I predict, if you wish a sacred cremation, your ashes can be placed in a small warhead missle and fired into outerspace, where you would essentially and eternally continue your journey."
"I predict that you will live better, you will eat better, and you will enjoy yourself more with the new products, the new methods of manufacturing, and the rearrangement of your work for more recreational time."
"I predict that within the next three years, Death, the Proud Brother, will tap upon the shoulders of five hundred very famous and beloved personalities. The next three years will become known to history as The Years of Great Personal Loss."
"I predict the law of supply and demand will be the basis for a new world government."
"I predict that flying saucers will officially land on the lawn of the White House to open up a new outer-space, inter-world treaty. Mark this date on your calendar: May the sixth, 1991."
"I predict that next year will be the insect year. Bedbugs in Boston! Fleas in Philadelphia! Vultures in Virginia! Cicadas in Kansas! Beetles in Birmingham! Ticks in Tennessee! Plus: the Invisible Insects in Indiana! "
"I predict that nudist funeral processions will not end up at the cemetary, but at some police station."
"I predict that LSD, marijuana, and speed can change your sex. You will tell your Aunt Tillie that she's really, could be, Uncle Fred."
Exhumed in a Las Vegas thrift shop
"Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives, whether we want to or not. And remember my friend, these future events will affect you. The future is in your hands! So let us remember the past, honor the present, and be amused at the future."
"I predict that you will not be able to turn this record off, as they turned me off on the Johnny Carson program with my following prediction: I predict that every able-bodied man in America will be asked to contribute to a sperm bank. This will later be used in artificial insemination if and when a holocaust should occur. This sperm bank will be open twenty-four hours a day, and a night depository would be accepted. This for the eventuality that the male of the species might become extinct."
"I predict that the coming years will be known as the Three R's: Riot, Rape, and Revelry. I predict this insatiable desire for destruction will be fed by the increased use of drugs found in a simple headache tablet. Huge areas of cities will become smoldering ruins. Piles upon piles of human bodies will be heaped in our thoroughfares as a warning by these rioting radicals! Some gutters will flow with blood, as rain after a spring shower. Law enforcement will break down and we will be forced to go into a garrison state, and other military rule. The Riots, the Rapes, and the Revelry will merely be replaced by Crisis, Chaos, and Carnage."
"I also predict that the world will come to an end as we know it today on August the eighteenth, 1999. But it will be February the fourteenth, the year 2000, until the smoke clears away."
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