(FORTUNE Magazine) – TV will get weirder and weirder, because people have stopped watching it. They rent videos, they watch cable. To compete, network TV will have to become less middle-of-the-road. I mean, I've been offered TV shows. It's possible, not too far off, that network TV will even show Pink Flamingos ((an outrageous early Waters work dealing with cannibalism and interspecies sex)). By ''weirder'' I really mean ''smarter.'' We'll see more clever stuff. More offbeat stuff. Too many people say, ''That won't play in Peoria.'' Well, people in Peoria aren't stupid. Some are, but there are people in New York or L.A. who are stupid too. You don't play down to your audience. You have to like what you're kidding. I think making fun of easy targets has run its course. That's why I didn't like Roger & Me. The targets were too easy. It's easy to make fun of simple people. (The director wasn't exactly a looker himself.) Satire doesn't work if you trick people into making fools of themselves on camera. And these weren't evil people. They don't deserve it. I make gentle fun of the same kind of people, but I don't look down on them. I'm fascinated by them. To me, Roger was using them so that an upscale audience could chuckle at their plainness. Fads of the Nineties? Hair is always the way to rebel. The coming hairdo is the ''dork-knob,'' a ponytail that isn't quite long enough for a good ponytail. Dork-knobs are already big among Hollywood executives. Beyond that, what's left? Shave it off? What I always wanted to see was a well-dressed man in an Armani suit, with dreadlocks. That would be the ultimate rebel look, especially if you had thin, awful hair. It will remain very uncool to be a racist. Even if you are a racist, you don't have the nerve to say it anymore. But everyone hates someone. In Berlin now East Berliners are going to become the new bridge-and-tunnel crowd. They will eventually be hated by West Berliners the same way Manhattanites hate people who come in from New Jersey and ruin the great clubs. What else? Well, people already are prejudiced against the Japanese. They think all the bad cliches from old movies are true -- that they're sneaky and want to own us. ''Remember Pearl Harbor'' will come back as a slogan. Still, I don't think America is becoming morally bankrupt or depraved. Drugs have come full circle. When I took drugs in the 1960s, the smartest and most creative kids took them. Now? The stupidest. We used to take drugs to think more. Today people take them to think less. If I had a child, I'd be upset if he took drugs.

The worst trend is the building of ''Festival Marketplaces'' -- like Baltimore's Harborplace, or New York's South Street Seaport. They're soul- less. Eventually, you won't know what city you're in. You could be in Omaha; you could be in Baltimore; you could be in New York. As in the Sixties, rich people in the Nineties will be less likely to brag about wealth. People will find ''Trumpism'' mortifying. The notion will be, ''If you have money, don't talk about it.'' They'll be thankful they have it, of course. But bragging about it? Bad taste.