When Earth Becomes Just Another Tourist Trap

Like you I worry that if current trends in science and commerce continue it will only be a matter of time before intergalactic travel really takes off and you know what happens then, Earth turns into one of these tourist hot spots.

I don’t know about anyone else but my idea of a good time is not dressing up like a typical earthling and going about some stagey business or other in order to keep the Venusians or Alpha Centurians amused long enough so that at the end of the show you can steer then to the gift shop on their way out before they lift off from the planet entirely.

That is presumably our fate however if, like I say, current trends continue.

You see these spots today where the townsfolk walk around churning butter or hammering steel on a big old anvil or reenacting Civil War battles or staging gunfights in the OK Corral, full knowing that at the end of the day they clock out and go home and watch Netflix and flip through YouTube to watch other people play video games.

I just don’t think that is any way to live. There is enough pretense in ordinary life without absolutely turning yourself into a fictional character. Plus, what do these guys make, anyway? If it’s more than the minimum wage I’d be surprised.

All I’m saying is that the business attracts a certain type of person. Who else applies for a job as a street urchin in Victorian London saying “Beggin’ yer pardon, sir, step right over ‘ere and watch a clutch of cockney lads perform a dance for you and the missus! Watch your tentacles now!”

I’m not doing that! I don’t care how many Martians or Plutonians are in the audience or what their expectations are. I don’t in other words care what the tri-fold brochure they picked up back at the Visitor’s Center says, I’m just not that outgoing.

If you want to know the truth, I’m not particularly outgoing when I’m home alone in the house without another soul around. I can’t imagine what a mess I would make of the production if I was tied to a script and had to really get into character. Plus in front of all these visitors from other planets.

I would be in the position of these fine people in the Ozarks or I suppose Verona, Italy who wake up one day to hear “OK, boys, from here on out you’re playing either a Hatfield or a McCoy, figure out what you want to be,” or in the case of Verona, “You’re playing either a Montague or a Capulet, there are no other job openings.”  This is just about the only game in town and you are told so in no uncertain terms. I mean there is no local industry anymore and all the cars are made overseas, or in this case some other planet, so what else is there besides tourism?

All I’m saying is that certain people are made for this kind of life and certain people aren’t. I would say that the people who would be a natural fit are those already involved in community theater, certain highly theatrical girls you knew in grade school, and anyone in whatever stage of life you’re in who shows a flair for the dramatic. I mean they like the dramatic! Find it a very natural state to be in. I don’t! That’s all I’m saying.

This fellow who charges into the quarterly board meeting with his Powerpoint presentation and throws the deck away and stands there and says “are you with me, boys, or aren’t you?” and of course --  of course – everyone stands and cheers and lets him know that they are behind him one hundred percent, well first of all, that’s just not me. If it was me I’d go through the presentation and ask at the end if there were any questions and then sit back down like a normal human being.

But’s that’s not even the main point.

The main point is that the Venusians are going to love this guy! He’ll be hamming it up up and down the main streets of Tombstone or Silver Dollar City or Dicken’s London and will really occupy the role, really sell it to the audience.

And just watch, the Martians will nudge one another with their claw-like appendages or free-floating brains just pulsing away or maybe glowing when they communicate and say, “I’m glad we chose this tour. I just feel we’re seeing the real Earth and real Earthlings, not like that fakey tour that Gladys and Fred went on.”

And don’t forget, this guy is as fakey as can be!

Oh, and there’s another type of fellow who just feels deep down that if you see a conga line at the height of Mardi Gras in New Orleans and you’re not at the head of it popping fancy dance moves on the crowd as you go, then you’re just a hopelessly withdrawn introvert.

Someone else the galactic aliens are going to love! Just love!

I’ll get off the topic of this guy in a minute, he’s actually a guy I knew in high school, but he’s the type that is going to leap, I mean absolutely leap, at the chance to play Al Capone or Mickey Finn or Paul Bunyan or Typical Earthling for the theatrical delight of these gigantic spores or waggling eyestalk monster types who are going to be blowing through the planet day in and day out and saying – in effect! – “what have you got in this burg, what phony baloney piece of street theater have you worked up that might barely interest me if the rest of the galaxy somehow or other blew up and hadn’t yet reconstituted itself?”

Me, I’d rather die that have a conga line pass in front of me, much less lead one.

So what I’m saying is that I wouldn’t be any good at this stuff anyway, while every Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe wannabe, which let’s admit it, seems to be just about everyone in the world except me these days, will naturally excel at it, and thereby thrive in the new tourist economy that’s going to be our fate once intergalactic travel opens up.

While I’m over in a corner somewhere, schlepping away like usual, not even worth a glance from our alien overlords. Man, why does everything seem to pass me by?

Man.

Anyway, that’s one of the reasons I’m not so hyped about intergalactic travel opening up. Nobody ever thinks of these things until it’s too late.