Category: Undead Celebrities

October 1, 2132
MALIBU–A Malibu, California woman was surprised to learn Friday during a taping of PBS’s popular Antiques Roadshow that an unusual wardrobe stored for more than fifty years in her aunt’s attic is in fact a high-tech, bio-preservation chamber containing hibernating television actor David Schwimmer. “I’m as shocked as anyone,” exclaims the woman. “I have no idea where [my aunt] would have gotten something like this. I doubt she even knew what she had.”

Clad in an ornate, hand-crafted shell featuring inlaid Brazilian hardwoods and cultivated coral, the chamber, designed to blend seamlessly with home decor of the era, includes a self-sealing ceramic ‘sarcophagus’ in which the owner could ‘hibernate’ in a specially designed biotic bath. “These ‘wardenberths’, or ‘warders’, served both an aesthetic and a practical purpose,” explains Leonard Especiale, Managing Director of Sotheby’s and a frequent guest appraiser on the Roadshow. “Not only were they beautiful and unique works of furniture, but they also enabled their owners to wait out career downturns and lengthy legal or contractual entanglements.”

Based around a directed, contained biosphere dedicated to preservation and age-retardation, the wardenberth is filled with a bath of distilled, oxygenated water in which the user is suspended. Donning an engineered, skin-tight mesh of high-sensitivity ciliates and human-grade Pfiesteria, owners can, in principle, survive indefinitely. “These are highly-tuned biosystems,” notes Dr. Magda Himmelblau of the Florida Institute of Technology. “They can survive on virtually no input. Slight temperature differences across the surface of the chamber generate enough Brownian motility in the bath to stimulate the ciliates, and the whole system is built up from there. It’s fragile, but, as long as the thing is otherwise completely contained–completely cut off–it can carry on indefinitely.”

Brought to the Malibu Convention Center for appraisal by the Roadshow’s experts, the Schwimmer wardenberth immediately drew the interest of Danielle Passim, an expert on celebrity furniture and toiletries. “I saw the inlaid portrait of [Schwimmer] on the front panels and knew right away that here was an important find,” recalls Passim. “Then, I started to look more closely, and, when I realized that he was inside, my heart just leapt into my throat. I’ve seen a number of warders like this, but never with a real, live occupant still inside. More often than not curious owners have disturbed the chamber, unintentionally decimating the value of the piece. This one is intact. A rare find. A real treasure.”

Asked about the provenance of the unusual piece, the current owner recalled having seen it in her aunt’s attic as a child, but could offer few other clues. “She was a bit of a pack rat,” recounts the owner. “She loved to go to estate sales and flea markets. My guess is that she would have picked it up in one of those places. It always sort of fascinated me as a kid, but, to tell you the truth, I don’t think I ever really talked to her about what it was or where she got it.”

Wardenberth containing Hibernating Television Actor, $12,000-$17,000.

July 6, 2048
NEW YORK–Officials from Sony Music Entertainment announced Monday that remaining dates on the Jackzon Five Reunion Tour will be postponed, and possibly cancelled, pending a recall of Michael and Tito Jackzon. “It is with great sadness and regret that we announce what will potentially be the end to the Jackzon tour,” proclaimed Scooter Beverage, Sony VP of Live and Near-Live Performances. “We want the fans to know that whatever is wrong with Michael, he will rise again, and the Jackzons will be back.”

The Jackzon Five, the brainchild of promoter and Jackson family patriarch Joe Jackson, have performed to capacity crowds in Detroit, New York, Brasilia, and Twickenham. Performing a mix of traditional Jackson Five material, solo material from members of the Jackson family, and new material composed by Joe Jackson and based upon a cycle of traditional Celtic dancing songs, the Jackzons have revived interest in American pop music among a generation of young listeners disillusioned with the slick production values and forced whimsy of the contemporary scene.

“I can’t believe the tour is off,” complains a fan with tickets for the Albany show. “The Jackzons are the only thing that’s real in music any more, the only thing with soul, with real roots in the tradition.”

The result of an advanced, experimental production process known as Human Vapor Deposition, the Jackzons were produced from authentic genetic samples taken from each of the Jacksons and refined through a complex process of error-correction based on comparative analyses with the Joe Jackson genome. “No cost was spared in guaranteeing an authentic set of Jackzons,” explains Sony’s Beverage. “The process is cutting edge, just like they were.”

Human Vapor Deposition, modeled after traditional microprocessor production techniques, makes use of a series of filters, or masks, through which light is projected onto a genetically engineered soup or ‘gel.’ Special chemicals in the gel react with differing wavelengths of light, forming a ‘scale’ or ‘dupe.’ The scale is then sliced into cross-sections, each only as thick as the transistor groove on a computer chip. The slices, taken in turn, are sealed in a ‘clean slip’ and exposed to a specialized vapor that bonds to the cross-sections and interacts with the DNA in the gel, activating and disabling genes in accordance with gel arrangements formed during the exposure to the mask. Once the slices are reassembled, a living, breathing Jackzon walks off the line ready to perform.

Sony officials made the decision to recall Tito and Michael shortly after being notified by technicians that a flaw had been discovered in the masks used to produce both. “The Tito mask and the adult Michael mask had miniscule imperfections in them that gave us some concern,” explains Dr. Wilton Clay, the Jackzon custodial physician. “The imperfections were small signatures left behind by the mask designers, like a sort of graffiti. I haven’t seen them myself, but I’m told Tito contains a nanoscopic ‘kilroy’ while Michael’s got a glove making an obscene gesture.”

Though Sony has not released information concerning the medical condition of the recalled Jackzon brothers, Dr. Clay has indicated that they are in “good health,” and that the recall was precautionary in nature. “I saw them both last night,” reports Dr. Clay. “And they were in good spirits. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the tour dates were reinstated in the near future.”

Jackzon Reunion Tour ticket holders should contact their vendor immediately concerning refunds, exchanges, or in kind compensation.

March 16, 2042
NEW YORK–AOLTW Chairman Emeritus Steve Case was rushed to a private New York hospital late Thursday following a reported assault by unsolicited commercial email. “We do not want to go into details at this time,” explains AOLTW Chief Security Officer Pamela Spoon. “But we can confirm that Mr. Case, for a number of months, has been stalked and harassed by a significant amount of spam, including messages soliciting mortgage business and offering to enlarge his penis.”

Spam, irritating but typically harmless commercial messages distributed arbitrarily to the public at large, has been known to seriously, and sometimes fatally, injure hosts when sent in large quantities to networked organs and prostheses. “It’s a serious, and clearly documented problem,” notes William Chappamattox, Vice Director of the CalTech Center for Electrohygenics. “I know of at least 23 cases in which spam has caused measurable damage to wireless livers and kidneys. The real shame is that most of the injuries could have been prevented through correct firewall configuration.”

Speaking at his company’s annual meeting, Case last year revealed to shareholders that he had received a number of life-sustaining transplants, including a wireless liver, pancreas, and colon. “I feel 100%,” announced the spry, khaki-panted Case. “My doctors can monitor my blood sugar and fine-tune my insulin levels from any thin client anywhere in the world. I’m feeling better than I have in years.”

Though unconfirmed by AOLTW spokespeople, sources inside Case’s medical team indicate that he recently underwent experimental installation of a Pore-to-Pore Dermal Network designed to increase information exchange among regions of the dermis and to firm and tone his skin. “Steve’s not a vain guy,” explains the inside source. “This wasn’t a vanity thing. It’s just that boyishness was his trademark look. He didn’t want people to think he was losing it.”

“I don’t personally know of any reported injuries resulting from spam sent to one of these pore-to-pore networks,” notes CalTech’s Chappamattox. “But I do know from experience that security is not always the highest priority in the first generation of some of these organs. Scripted pop-ups and pop-unders could conceivably wreak havoc with [Case’s] new skin.”

Though declining to comment on questions concerning the role of Case’s reported dermal installation in the spam assault, AOLTW spokespeople did indicate that the company “is taking appropriate legal action to enjoin continued harassment of Chairman Case.”

In papers filed this week in New York Federal District Court against “John Doe(s) and twelve other unidentified senders of unsolicited commercial email” an AOLTW legal team seeks “temporary and permanent orders enjoining Defendants from sending, relaying, or transmitting electronic messages to any IP address associated with Plaintiff or any of his organs or prostheses,” and further requests “compensatory damages for past, continuous, and ongoing trespass to his organs and person.”

Details concerning Case’s current medical condition are few, limited to a family spokesman’s indication that the situation is “grave” and that he is in “bad shape but good spirits.”

April 16, 2023
PALO ALTO–Under pressure from the Food & Drug Administration and the Securities & Exchange Commission, spokespeople for the family of famed financier Michael Milken confirmed Friday that his death late last month was likely related to his ingestion of experimental, high-yield ‘biosecurities.’ “Mike was an innovator, and a risk-taker,” recalls Lillian Oval, director of the Milken Family Foundation. “Biosecurities were part of his vision for the future, and, though he believed them to be safe, he knew that there were risks. But he was a pioneer, and that’s what a pioneer does.”

Biosecurities, developed by Vitomus, LLC, a privately funded consortium of banks, brokerages, and biotech firms, represent a cutting-edge combination of financial and biological technologies. Each of the ‘securities’ is a “viable, engineered bio-organism” designed with the behaviors and qualities of a financial instrument. “The idea is really quite simple,” explains Erik Ween, Vitomus’ Chief Research Officer. “We take a simple single-celled organism, in some cases even a virus, and redesign it so that it can embody, for example, a convertible debenture, or even just a share of common stock.”

Through the use of advanced techniques for genetically encoding mathematical and computational algorithms, Vitomus’ member engineers have created bacteria whose growth rate mimics the coupon payments associated with some bonds, and have engineered special ciliates whose reproductive cell-division coincides with stock splits. “The trick isn’t really to define biological behaviors to represent financial behaviors. That’s easy enough,” Ween explains. “The essence of these instruments is really trust and authentication. Self-authenticating, encrypted DNA sequences unique to each organism allow you to identify them and know their legitimacy.”

Once ingested, short-term biosecurities typically live in the mouth and throat, with longer-term notes favoring the blood, lower intestines, and abdominal tissue. Transactions between ‘carriers’ are typically achieved through close contact or exchange of bodily fluids.

“It’s really quite a new paradigm in the financial world,” notes Merrill Lynch VP of Private Banking Barry Vary. “What I used to achieve through the touch of a button, I now do with a deep, wet kiss. There’s a new intimacy to high-value transactions that’s really quite refreshing.”

Originally designed as a more private, more secure replacement for the classic ‘bearer bond,’ biosecurities have gained a foothold among wealthy traders eager to avoid the scrutiny of conventional markets and exchanges.

Milken, a vocal advocate of the new instruments and a key member of the Vitomus advisory board, had reportedly converted much of his portfolio to the new securities, and was actively involved in the creation of synthetic and hybrid instruments through novel combinations of the organisms. “Mike was way ahead of all of us,” comments Vitomus’ Ween. “I heard that he was growing lots of synthetic puts and, as you might expect, was heavily into the high-yield end of the spectrum.”

Though the Milken family has declined to identify specific instruments, experts speculate that his untimely death was the result of run-away growth in his high-yield investments. “The doctors have informed us that Mike died as the result of a constricting inflammation in the throat area,” reported a family spokesperson. “And we have been led to understand that this inflammation was the result of the appearance of unusually large colonies of unidentified bacteria.”

Responding to the family’s announcement, Congresswoman Barbie Hi (D-MI), Chair of the House Committee on Edible and Ingestible Objects, put out an immediate call for an investigation: “This is a tragic loss, and it must not be in vain. My promise to the American people is that I will not rest until we know what these things are and what dangers they pose to the public health.”