THE NAKED CITY – 2022 – A PSYCHIC FORECAST!

As I have bemoaned before there was once a time when psychics, soothsayers, tabloid hacks and even legitimate futurologists made all sorts of predictions for the coming year. Yet with the uncertainty over COVID and the volatile state of politics worldwide few are prepared to stick their neck out for 2022.   

I’ve always been inspired around this time by the great American psychic and showman extraordinaire Jeron Criswell, better known as ‘The Amazing Criswell’. With a nationally syndicated TV show and several books to his name he was a fixture during the 60s with his often outrageous predictions like an outbreak of cannibalism during the end of the earth in 1999. He did however occasionally get it right and in March 1963 he suggested that JFK would not run for re-election in 1964 because something was going to happen to him in November 1963. So here in the spirit of Criswell is the Naked City’s spin on what you might well expect in 2022.  

POLITICS: The Morrison Government is booted out as Labor sweeps the polls. Anthony Albanese conducts a brilliant campaign, guesting at numerous festivals as DJ Albo and winning almost all young voters. Barnaby Joyce remains stranded abroad after contracting a rare form of the bubonic plague on a trade mission to Azerbaijan (flogging coal of course) and is forced into three months of quarantine. Michaelia Cash loses all credibility with petrol heads nationwide after she is spotted driving an electric ute. Clive Palmer is ejected from a Twisted Sister concert in Brisbane after he and Craig Kelly become over boisterous in the mosh pit. Ever in search of imperial honours Tony Abott takes up a position and regal title at the Hutt River Province. In America photos of Donald Trump’s genitalia appear surprisingly in the National Mushroom Growers Digest but are quickly dismissed by the ex president as ‘fake news’.  

MUSIC: The ABBA ‘Avatar’ tour of Australia is called off after hackers take control of Benny and he mouths inappropriate sexist comments (albeit in Swedish) during the opening show in Sydney. Promoters cancel a Kenny Rogers tour of Australia when they realise he has been dead for over two years. Heritage rock bands are forced to display a used by date at all club and concert gigs. 

ART AND FASHION: The MCA is forced to foreshorten a retrospective exhibition of Phil Spector’s wigs after protestors label it as ‘baldist’. Blue Poles – The Musical is a smash hit, touring every capital city but leaving theatres and audiences splattered with paint. The Art Gallery Of NSW shells out a million dollars for an Arthur Sarnoff painting of dogs playing pool. 

TELEVISION: Flushed by the ‘experience’ of their shameless (and incredibly lame) Letters & Numbers ripoff, SBS look to hijacking other TV franchises. Lee Lin Chin returns to the station as the guest auctioneer in a local spinoff of Storage Wars whilst Sophie Monk demonstrates her social conscience with a brand new version of Love Island set on Nauru. Jerry Springer flies from the US to join the SBS team, hosting Insight and promising a food fight in every episode. Channel 10 runs out of ideas completely and decides to run a 24/7 test pattern. Channel 9 introduces product placement during the six o’clock news with newsreaders sucking on Pepsi, taking occasional bites of KFC, and fiddling incesstantly with Lego. 

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY: Alan Jones is cryogenically frozen, planning a coming back to radio in 2075. Elon Musk combines with Jeff Bezos to open a Hooters restaurant on the moon in anticipation of accelerated space tourism. A fast food burger containing the COVID vaccine is marketed for those preferring not to get jabbed.   

AND FINALLY: The world could well end and cannibalism take over when supplies of Spam finally run out!