One from the Vaults: Omni Magazine #1, October, 1978

Going through some of the deeper recesses of the hole last night, I happened upon my long-saved copy of the first issue of OMNI magazine, where Bob Guccione tried to do for science and science fiction what he did for...uh...hardcore porn. Unleashed upon the world in 1978, somehow at 12 I managed to score copies of the first couple of issues, blissfully unaware of the connection to Penthouse -- I imagine my parents must have been as well. There would be little on the surface to connect the two, other than one of the image in the pictorial on robots that had a woman who...well, see, there were...well, that's irrelevant at this point (and my Mom may be reading).

So somehow with all the other comic books, magazines, records, and other stuff I have dumped over the years, I managed to retain this copy of Omni. Twenty-seven years later, it remains even with a cursory glance an interesting historical time capsule. Let's leaf through, shall we?

Open the cover: A full page ad from VW touting their new Rabbits that have "seatbelts that put themselves on." A very hip guy in a plaid jacket is closing his door. Volkswagen does it again! An advertisement touting Rockwell International's successful completion of the first Space Shuttle the year before which you can iron-on to a t-shirt to commemorate!

By page 34, we are discussing the creation of artificial environments in space to sustain populations; one breathless caption tells us: "By the year 2000, space settlements...may be home for 10,000 workers." I am so glad that Bob Guccione was able to lay the future out for us so clearly, just like that Donald Fagen guy.

In the arts section, a preview of the upcoming Fall TV season of fantasy wonders: Battle Star Galactica; The Amazing Spiderman; Mork and Mindy! Furthermore, in the wake of the incredible sci-fi splash made by Star Wars and Close Encounters just a year before, the lead off fantasy film for the coming year will be: The Cat From Outer Space! Followed by a re-release of Harryhausen's Jason and the Argonauts. After these two A-list classics, next on the list is Bakshi's animated Lord of the Rings (how else could anyone possibly successfully make those books into a movie???) and finally, somebody is apparently going to try and make a big budget Superman movie. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but are we not now able to see most of these again, redone anew now??? Some Disney exec somewhere is snapping his fingers and going "Heyyyy! Cat from Outer Space! Hillary Duff!" Forward. Lots of ads for high-end turntables. Lots of booze. An ad for Le Car (compared favorably to a Chevette!) Science fiction stories I did not understand then and have no time for now. An article on the Shroud of Turin...and then the robot art, and that woman with the...well, anyway. An Asimov story illustrated by H.R. Giger (pre-Alien, but that thing sure looks like a full-grown one). A taoist analysis of Star Wars ("The Force in Star Wars is only a Hollywood version of the 3000-year-old Chinese Tao.") and an ad proclaiming UFO's May Doom Life On Earth. Finally, an ad for Clarion car stereos that says you can now "choose from a wide variety of ... component systems, including AM/FM stereo cassette or 8-track, exciting new home type 3-way speaker systems."

Sure, there's probably lots of good, interesting science in here, dont get me wrong -- but I didn't read it then, and the to-be-read stack is too high to add a 27-year-old magazine to it right now. But soaring from 30,000 feet over its pages is entertainment enough.

Finally, perhaps the most important part of the magazine: a survey. We hip, drunk, car-stereo-loving young men are asked to predict when certain things in the future will happen, anywhere from "Before 1980" all the way to "2000+" and "Never". Interestingly, and in a couple of cases, thankfully, only a few of these things have yet to happen, and in one case whether the item has taken place yet or not kinda depends on whether you live in a blue state or a red state. I will leave you to decide for yourself, and ruminate on where we have been, and where we might be going....

• First woman elected President of the USA.
• Nuclear war breaks out between USA and USSR.
• US commits troops to Africa to counter communist incursions.
• Gasoline reaches 25 cents per liter.
• First terrorist use of nuclear weapons.
• Return to pre-Sixties standards of morality and end of "permissive society"
• Manned landing on Mars.
• First public "paying passengers" on orbital spaceflight.
• Industrialization of space becomes important source of income.
• Computer beats world (human) chess champion.
• World shortage of animal protein makes meat too expensive for average American household to serve.
• Contact made with extraterrestrial life.
• A human being is successfully cloned.
• Extrasensory perception is accepted as fact by a majority of scientists.
• Average life expectation of life is 100 years or more.
• Computers have "self-awareness" and intelligence greater than humans.
• The majority of South American governments become Community or ultra-left.
• Economic collapse of the west as predicted by Marxist commentators.
• Revolution in USSR leads to overthrow of existing regime and replacement by liberal "pro-West" government.
• Marriage as institution virtually disappears in USA with over 75 percent of babies born "out of wedlock."