Ideas Wanted

By Sean McVeigh

The Rockaway Times Publisher Emeritus, Kevin Boyle, and his partner-in-crime, Rick Horan, were once known as the “idea guys.” Their concept was simple: In a city of eight million people, there had to be plenty of great ideas waiting to be discovered. They roamed New York City with an “Ideas Wanted” sign, inviting New Yorkers to share their best ideas. Sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

I have some bad news for Boyle and Horan: there are no new ideas. I am obviously not the first to have this epiphany — that would make it, well, a new idea, and I literally just finished saying those don’t exist.

Let’s take movies as an example. What are some of the big names on the big screen these days? How about “Gladiator 2”? Great idea: let’s try (and fail) to recreate one of the greatest movies of all time, but this time, we’ll drown the audience in CGI. Ok, how about “A Complete Unknown”? Does it get any less original than a biopic? And then there’s this year’s Best Picture winner, “Anora.” Spoiler alert — because I know none of you have seen it — it’s just “Pretty Woman” set in Brighton Beach. Yes, that Brighton Beach.

This isn’t to say all these movies are bad. I, for one, cannot wait for “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” to hit theaters in May. Do I expect anything different from the first seven installments? Heck no! But I do expect to be thoroughly entertained for two hours. All I ask is that Hollywood embrace this reality instead of pretending otherwise.

Down in the Beltway, the Trump administration thinks it has come up with the greatest new idea: tariffs! Mr. President, every one of your predecessors from George Washington to William Howard Taft called, and they want their economic policy back. And let’s not forget, although it may feel like eons ago, it was only a handful of months ago that Kamala Harris floated the idea of price controls during her campaign. Madam Vice President, the Soviet Union called, and they’d like their economic policy back. These are some very, very old ideas indeed.

Of course, this phenomenon isn’t exclusive to Hollywood or Washington. We see it everywhere. The only person with original ideas in fashion is Lady Gaga, and that’s because she stretches the definition of “fashion” to its absolute limit — meat dresses, anyone? Have you noticed the fanny pack has made one of the greatest comebacks of all time? The only difference is people wear it across their chests now. Give me a break.

People are going to keep passing off recycled ideas as their own — that’s just a fact of life. I am just here trying to ensure that we all stay vigilant. This way, when we see a pile of horse feces flying at us from a mile away, we can call it what it is.

Maybe one day I will shock myself and come up with something new under the sun right here in this column — I doubt it. My only hope is that McVeighing In is like “Mission: Impossible” — you know exactly what you’re going to get, and you still come back for more.