Rocket to the Moon and Race Right Back

To my holograph room and my new jetpack

Jetpacks are in the news of late, thanks to some Fox News hosts getting duped by Weekly World News. The verdict, here from the Mythbusters guys appearing last night on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, is that no, we won't see any jetpacks anytime soon. Yeah, I thought I said that already.

I love how the folks who developed this behemoth, screaming jetpack claim it will fly for 30 minutes at 63 mph, but you never see it flying for more than a few seconds, and always hovering at about four feet off the ground. And this is Martin's second go-round with a PR push. The first one (over two years ago) didn't generate enough buzz, I guess. Maybe because this was and still is a shitty jetpack.

With all this jetpack news, you'd think a radio station, commercial producer or someone should be playing or licensing my song at this point. 

In the Year 2552, Jetpacks are Commonplace

And they fly for all of 10 seconds. And they're still noisy as fuck.

Tim Nudd over at AdFreak points out that the Tuesday launch of Halo:Reach included a stunt in London's Trafalgar Square involving a jetpack.



Surprise! It's the same, lame jetpack that stunters have been using since the 1946 SuperBowl. Yawn. Nice job, Microsoft/Xbox. You have executed a worn-out stunt in promotion of your new game. And all the traditional media people you invited went, "Wooooo!" [clap-clap-clap]

What? SuperBowl wasn't around in 1946? Oh. Sorry. But that jetpack was. This shtick is old, it's lame, and it doesn't answer the question this blog's title asks. (Or, for that matter, the question asked by this blog's music video. Or this blog's theme song.)

Rent your next loud, brief jetpack stunt from this dude. Invite drunken journalists. They will be in awe.

Nope - Ain't Seen No Jetpacks Yet

In the last couple of days, I've had friends send me messages via Facebook, Twitter and email regarding this story from The Wall Street Journal. It's very similar to a story done in July of last year by The New York Times—and it's the same old story, "Everyone wants a jetpack - but jetpacks suck really bad right now."

Because of the title of this blog, I've been quoted in a book about Jetpacks.

There's another book about Jetpacks whose title is the same as this blog. (I was first.)

And there will also always be crappy jetpack announcements from starry-eyed inventors. But none of the jetpacks fly very far for very long, they're usually tethered, and they're usually priced at about $250,000.

When I was in 2nd grade, I checked out a tattered old book from the Fort Lewis, Washington Elementary School Library called Skyjets for Fliers of Tomorrow. It told the tale of two kids who got mail-order flight suits and went flying around their town, visited their grandma and were home in time for dinner. (Images on this post from that book.) I guess that book started me wishing I could fly, but it's really an ancient and universal dream - personal flight. And it hasn't happened yet. Not to any satisfactory degree, anyway. I mean, who wants to fly only over a lake tethered to a giant hose sucking water from the lake?


The only way I will stop asking the question “Where’s My Jetpack?” is when jetpacks are affordable to common clowns like you and me and will safely convey us to and from our places of employment or the grocery store. It would also be nice if they didn’t sound like F-18s at full throttle and could fly for longer than a couple minutes on a tank of fuel. Another real benefit would be if they were available at Wal-Mart. I want them easy enough to operate that my Mom could handle one.

But more than that, the question “Where’s My Jetpack?” is at its heart a joke. The jetpack is simply a symbol of all the other things that were supposed to be here by now, promised to us by the advertisers, by Disney, by the government and all the other dreamers. As it says over in the sidebar under “Bascially...”: “The future is now, and we’re still waiting.”

It's all explained in the lyrics to this blog's theme song.

UPDATE: And Hanna points out in the comments that Quaker just launched - haha - get it? "launched" - sorry - a campaign featuring a Jimmy Fallon lookalike wearing a Quaker Oats jetpack.

He Lives on the Moon, We May All Be There Soon

In honor of NASA's 50th birthday, and in anticipation of the long-awaited jetpack, enjoy this 1968 commercial for Mattel's Major Matt Mason. Note the intro and outro camera, the black and white kids playing with black and white action figures, as well as the copy and announcer trying to tell a compelling story, sometimes rhyming.

Dreams of Flight

On this, the 50th anniversary of NASA, The New York Times has a cover story this morning about that jetpack I mentioned last week debuting at AirVenture in Oshkosh, WI today. Like most jetpacks, this one is severely lacking and severely expensive. Says the inventor,

“If someone says, ‘I’m not going to buy a jetpack until it’s the size of my high school backpack and has a turbine engine in it,’ that’s fine,” he said. “ But they’re not going to be flying a jetpack in their lifetime.”

I guess the inventor has been reading this blog, because I've basically said just that. Color me skeptical and unimpressed, but at $100,000 (and no one has gotten more than five feet off the ground so far) I'm thinkin'.....zzzzzzzzzzz.

Anyway, as I've said before, the jetpack is a symbol, a metaphor, a....something. I'm not really looking for a jetpack. It'd be nice, but the point is broader.

There's My Jetpack!

• 1931. The Glide-o-Bike, which looks super-safe and really practical. And at only 25¢, that's some pretty affordable death and dismemberment.
• Bill Green, currently on a weekend furlough in SanFran in the middle of the Plaid Tour, alerts me to an alternative jetpack possibility.
• And Brian Ellis (who has a Richmond, VA area code) has emailed to invite me to the AirVenture show in Oshkosh, WI later this month to see "the first practical Jetpack." A teaser video is here, but if I'm listening correctly, this thing will fly for all of two and a half minutes. Not practical, Brian, but a nice step in the right direction.

I will be unveiling my own crude jetpack (of sorts) later this year, as soon as I assemble all the supplies and map out the video. Seriously.

A Hovercraft in Every Drive

Instant breakfast on the table at 6:45

Friends of the show Jason Fox and Russ Smith both sent in links this week to sites about actual working jetpacks.

Jason, a Dallas-based copywriter who authors the hilarious Ad Hole, (and is now the proud father of twins. Congratulations, Mr. & Mrs. Fox.) sent in this one. Russ, (who I'm not sure I know what he does, but he reads this blog and might live in either Ohio or Colorado based on his Picasa set) sent in this one.

Thanks to both of them for the heads-up, but as I've said before, until a jetpack is available at Wal-Mart for a decent price and can go more than a quarter mile on a tank of fuel, this blog's name stays as is.

(I'll be linking to you both this weekend in the "Linkers and Lurkers" section to the right. Also, Joker, who writes a thoughtful blog and comments here late at night after he's been drinking heavily. Unless Joker is Russ Smith.)

On another note, I suppose it's time to cease receiving US flag redesign submissions, since Ben Mall, better known to the Internet as Texan in Hippieland, was the only one who sent in a design. Here's Ben's. It looks suspiciously similar to the Texas flag.

Hey Now

I approve. Two compound words, two syllables each. Message conveyed.

Where's My Jetpack? The Book by Someone Else

Daniel Wilson and I share the same initials, and we share the same thoughts on the future we were promised; the one that never arrived. His book shares the name of this blog. That book just arrived in the mail. Its chapter titles could've been lifted from the lyrics of the song of the same name. It's printed on what seems to be 100 lb. glossy cardstock, with illustrations by Richard Horne of East London. I'll thumb through it and it shouldn't take long. Chapters are broken down into inventions that never really happened, starting with the jetpack. It is categorized under "humor," so I'm hoping for a couple of chuckles for my $14.95.

Mr. Wilson once contacted me, trying to get me to part with the domain Where's My Jetpack? Not happening. I suggested WhereISMyJetpack.com and he snapped it up. Mr. Wilson is a columnist for Popular Mechanics and earned a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. He authored another book that Mike Myers optioned the movie rights for, How to Survive a Robot Uprising. So, he's much smarter than me and he's been published. You might like his book.

This is the extent of my promotion of Mr. Wilson's book. He's presently on a book tour in the Pacific Northwest. I'm counting on him to make the phrase Where's My Jetpack? even more popular, preparing the way for me. Thanks, Daniel, and good luck. I hope you makes tons of money. Don't waste it on Rush albums, though.

For me, the phrase has always been about more than just inventions that didn't happen. The name of the blog is really tongue in cheek and does not speak to jetpacks alone. "Jetpack" is just a symbol for all the awesome goodness we were promised as children; a glorious future of peace and wealth and universal brotherhood, no death or sickness or strife. Heaven on Earth! (And sold to us by people like you and me - advertisers and marketers - with help from Disney, the government and Ray Bradbury.)

But that Utopian dream ain't happening anytime soon. Too many haters out there bent on destruction: Al Qaeda , Cho Seung-Hui, Alec Baldwin Kim Basinger and all the rest.

So, in that sense, it's hardcore cynicism, but I'll still be the first one in line when WalMart is selling cheap, reliable jetpacks.