[1011] in Humor
HUMOR: The Waterworld Budget
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Sun Aug 13 19:46:38 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Sun, 13 Aug 1995 19:43:36 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 13 Aug 1995 15:45:02 -0700
From: connie@interserve.com (Connie Kleinjans)
Enough of this nattering negativism. Let us try to think positively about
Kevin Costner's $176 million epic, waterlogged dud "Waterworld", which is to
say, let us think of ways that money might have been more positively spent:
-- It would have funded the cherished and embattled National Endowment for
the Arts for an entire year -- sparing everyone from having to wear all those
NEA support buttons at the Oscars -- with enough left over to finance a major
artistic statement in which every performance artist in the country jumps
into the Grand Canyon naked screaming their Social Security numbers
backwards.
--- It would have paid for the landing gear and at least one of the cockpit
seats in one of those $1.5-billion-apiece B-2 bombers.
-- Provided it was dug in a right-to-work state with cheap labor (not
California), it would have paid for at least half the cost of excavating a
gigantic underground vault like Ft. Knox in which to house Costner's ego.
-- It would have paid for the Smithsonian Institution's
indefinitely-shelved-for-budgetary-reasons National Museum of the American
Indian on the Mall that Costner, wearing Sioux Indian costume and glowing in
the success of his less watery "Dances With Wolves", helped consecrate in a
Lakota Indian ceremony on Capitol Hill several years ago.
-- It would have been enough to add 17,600 Mercedes-Benz sedans to the Los
Angeles traffic.
-- It would *not* have been enough to get Costner or anyone else in Hollywood
admitted as a member of the snooty New York Yacht Club, even if Costner tried
to gain entrance in the flaming way he intrudes himself on Dennis Hopper's
fortress in "Waterworld".
-- Unless she really enjoys doing them, it would enable Cher to stop earning
her living doing infomercials on late-night TV.
-- It could make Costner's ex-wife's lawyer even happier than he already is.
-- It would have paid the player salaries of the major league baseball team
of Costner's choice for at least half a season.
-- It could have enabled the "Waterworld" people to qualify for the very top
premium gift (The complete works of Shakespeare on audio cassette? A date
with Diana Rigg?) if they had pledged the whole thing to public TV on pledge
night.
-- Possibly, but not necessarily certainly, it could have paid O.J. Simpson's
legal bill.
-- Possibly, but not necessarily certainly, it could pay President Clinton's
legal fees for the Whitewater and Paula Jones cases.
-- It would have paid for the officer's quarters and at least some of the
enlisted men's toilets on one of the new $2.4 billion Seawolf submarines
being built to confront the Russian undersea menace, though I think nowadays
most of the Russian undersea menace consists of unrepaired battleships.
-- It could have financed a wild, unrealistic, fantasy movie (i.e., a Tom
Clancy movie) on the Russian undersea menace.
-- It could be divvied up between the contestants in the Miss America Pageant
to provide them adequate compensation for the terrible shame and sacrifice
they make having to parade wearing bathing suits before actual people.
-- In terms of campaign contributions, it still wouldn't be enough to elect
Ross Perot president of the United States.
-- The Disney people could have used it to tip someone after completing their
$19 billion takeover of ABC.
-- It could have been given to Donald Trump, which would have left him with
*real* assets of $176,000,000.52.
-- For that kind of money, they could have gotten Arnold Schwarzenegger
instead.
(Excerpted from a column by Michael Kilian in the Chicago Tribune.)
* ========= Connie Kleinjans (connie@interserve.com) ========= *
* "Humor. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to send it." *
* ======= Humorous, thanks to InterServe, 415-328-4333 ======= *
