Next year(?)’s moon trip is Elon Musk’s Chicago mafia tour
The biggest rip-off I’ve ever experienced in Chicago was when my kid brother came to visit. He knew nothing about Chicago back then, other than 1) his brother lives here, 2) their mother gets stuck in revolving doors every time she visits — this is true, bless her heart; and 3) the city was the home of famous gangster Al Capone.
So on a hot summer day, the kind you only get in that very specific part of the year between mid-July and early-August — but then also in late-January, early-February and mid-February now — I presented my brother with two tickets to… the mafia tour.
“The Untouchables Tour” was a cramped school bus painted black, run by two guys in black fedoras and suspenders who spoke with questionable Italian accents. But the biggest problem with the Untouchables Tour is not that it profits off a deadly and lawless time in the history of Chicago — we now have a president who uses those same two words to describe the city in 2017 — but it’s that you don’t actually do anything. Sure, you learn a thing or two about city history, and prohibition, and Dillinger, and — thankfully, as far as my brother is concerned — Al Capone himself. For example, did you know he is the reason why we print expiration dates — expiration dates: the original “spoiler alert” — on milk bottles nowadays? The More You Know™
Trivia aside, the tour takes you to a number of places where some major mafia-related events happened decades ago, but you really gotta use your imagination to picture them. For example, the River North flower shop where mobster Dean O’Banion was murdered in 1924 is now a parking lot. Needless to say, sitting inside a hot, idling bus listening to the words “O’Banion lay in the snow over a pool of his own blood, right there where that Zipcar is parked” is not what I would call “transporting you back in time,” no matter what Groupon says.
Arguably the highlight of the tour is the site of the Al Capone-led St. Valentine’s Day massacre. While they do a good job of explaining the history of how the murder of nine people was orchestrated, down to what people were wearing, all of this happens on the outside of the building where it all took place. So you end up spending twenty-five minutes just… staring at a wall. That’s something you do in college when you take three of something your friend said to take just one. Not something you’ll rate five stars on Yelp later.
Needless to say, I don’t think I got my money’s worth. But, as if to make me feel better, CNN announced an even bigger rip-off yesterday, when Elon Musk — a man whose name sounds like a porn star in a Battlestar Gallactica fan fic — said his company, SpaceX, will fly two people around the moon in 2018.
First of all, why do we care about the moon again, all of a sudden? Last time we were there was 45 years ago, and that’s a fact. I know some of you conspiracy theorists have been shouting “fake news” about the moon landing before shouting “fake news” was cool, but during a three-year period starting in 1969, twelve men walked on the moon. We were all about it, and then in 1972, humanity said “eh, that’s enough of that. Look, HBO is a thing now.”
If you think SpaceX’s trip will get you to the coveted 13th and 14th spots, it won’t. The weeklong trip will fly towards the moon, then use its gravitational pull to fly the spaceship around it and then back towards Earth. It’s a move that Hollywood screenwriters love to include in their scripts, and is a big part of the plot of not just the movie “Apollo 13,” but also “Armageddon” and “The Martian,” three movies that combined for 20 Oscars nominations… and whose adventures begin with three GIANT explosions. What could go wrong?
Remember, for those of you who are still writing 2016 on their checks thanks to an a-hole of a landlord who still charges you three percent extra if you pay any other way… 2018 is next year. And I know 2018 feels far away because that’s when midterm elections will happen, and when you have tickets for Hamilton, and we can’t wait for those things — but in terms of space, that’s, like, tomorrow. No one can find a babysitter that fast.
Now, it’s well-known that Elon Musk — a man whose name sounds like cologne you’d find in the clearance bin at Dollar General — tends to be overly optimistic about the timelines for his projects. And taking into consideration SpaceX won’t start testing the rocket that will be used until this summer, you can still plan on being around to vote on the congressional elections. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, please fucking do that.
Also, they won’t be taking you anyway; the first space tourists will be billionaires. Billionaires, the people for whom the “Sort by Price: High to Low” option on Amazon was invented. Experts say the price tag for this stroll should be around two hundred million dollars. That’s Betsy DeVos-buying-her-way-into-the-cabinet level dough, yo.
Still, neither timeline or dollar amount seems to be a problem for two very rich and at this point anonymous people who, according to Elon Musk — a man whose name sounds like what an alien’s underwear would smell — have already signed up for these flights.
I’m disappointed we don’t know who these two people are but I have my own thoughts as to who it should be. And I believe in Elon’s work, and that nothing bad will happen, so no, I’m not about to list pairs of people who I want out of my planet forever… like couples who have one Facebook profile; Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin whenever they’re around each other; or two of those kids with clipboards asking for signatures on the street — have they always worked in teams and I’ve never noticed it? Or have they recently perfected their ways to stop you? Because I don’t mean to fool you guys, but just because I’m a grown-ass man who performs comedy in front of crowds, it doesn’t mean I won’t jaywalk clear across State Street to avoid lying to a twenty-something-year old about being in a hurry. Yes, I do have a minute for gay rights, I just don’t have it on a sidewalk in front of the Disney Store. Sorry.
Also, I’m not going to list pairs of people who I selfishly want to see together in the same place just because I always suspected they’re the same person. Otherwise I’d list Nick Nolte and Gary Busey, Ryan Lochte and Rob Gronkowski, or Macklemore and any of the kids I went to high school with in suburban Maryland in the mid-90s, no exceptions. No. This is a short sample list:
Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones, because, can you imagine the narration?
Rapper B.o.B. and basketball player Kyrie Irving, both of them twenty-first century flat earthers. I kid you not, there are people who in 2017 believe the world might be flat. Those people are like anti-vaxxers on steroids. Let them look.
Australian pop duo Savage Garden. Because in 1997, the year after they came out with the #1 single “Truly Madly Deeply,” they came out with a song that unfortunately only climbed to #24 in the U.S. called, you guessed it, “To The Moon and Back.” What else are they up to right now anyway.
Brian Culligan and Martha Ruiz. If you don’t recognize the names, these are the two PwC employees behind Envelopegate. And I know no one is calling it that, but maybe we can start right now — pass it on. Either way, Brian and Martha… those two should lay low for a while, in a place far away from the producers of La La Land. Like around actual moonlight.
I can’t wait to find out who the real first two tourists to be ripped off on an expensive, cramped, tour around the moon will be. In the meantime, who knows, maybe my brother wins the lottery and decides to pay me back for those mafia tour tickets with some space travel. We can look out the window of our spacecraft onto a moon crater and try to imagine where they planted flags that blew away decades ago. I’m really good at that shit now.
