From BIUL III.
Category Archives: Nostalgic Obsessions
“Mercy”
From BIUL III.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Girls of BIUL, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions
Sponge
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Filed under Don't Know Don't Care, Eatable Things, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions
The Commoditization of Emotional Discovery
Feel like crying?
There’s an entire genre of movies, TV shows and music, explicitly designed to mollify you in your time of emotional distress. Plus, there’s a contrived ending that tells you everything’s okay. Or not. It’s basically sadness porn, after all.
Feel like laughing? Same deal. Entire blocks of television programming are devoted to laughter, loaded with disparate commercials for unhealthy items and services. You can “binge-watch” every stand-up special a comedian has produced, and then argue about a decrease in their edge, on the Internet. Isn’t that fantastic?
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Filed under Don't Know Don't Care, Eatable Things, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Uncategorized, Worst Of All
The Freeze
How come so few folks know about The Freeze? Punk rock band, formed in Cape Cod, 1978? Come on, the lead singer called himself Cliff Hanger! (“Rob Decradle” played guitar!)
It’s a shame they’re so obscure, but on the other hand, it works to their advantage in these times of prefabricated rebellion. They made fantastic, inspired punk rock, and they came from Cape Cod! Of all places!
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Late To The Party, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
Hate Proof: “You’re The Best (Around)”
Believe it or not, I have never seen The Karate Kid.
HI-KEEBA!
I know, right? Hasn’t everybody seen it? Well, sure, except for guys like me, who were totally and prematurely embittered towards the entire experience. Guys who were in sixth grade when The Karate Kid came out.
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Filed under Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club
3-D’s Nuts
3-D movies employ greatly improved technology today. Previously, they used the same glasses as 3-D comic books did; cardboard with acetate lenses in red and blue.
My personal pair, since 1991’s Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. (As much as would fit on my scanner.)
3-D comics were unreadable without these glasses. I still have two issues: Gumby 3-D and Transformers in 3-D #3, both from Blackthorne Publishing.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Magazine Rack, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Saturday Movie Matinee
21st Century Hatfields and McCoys
The first brand feud I can remember is Atari vs. Intellivision.
Note Major League Baseball endorsement. And misspelling of product name in quote. Superior, my Aunt Fanny.
Some kids had an Atari 2600 game console; some kids had an Intellivision. (Some kids had an Odyssey 2 or a Vectrex, but not for very long.) Atari kids hated Intellivision kids, and vice versa. The TV commercials for both brands stoked this hatred; George Plimpton appeared in an ad for Intellivision, which he explained meant “Intelligent Television”. Ergo, kids who played Atari were stupid. Continue reading
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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish
Tales From Salted Earth
Gather ’round, children. Don’t you wonder why we live in the cold and poisoned world that we do? Looking back, around a decade ago, everything got too salty.
We used to come home from work and watch TV, enjoying longtime creature comforts. Television shows were devoted to entertaining us, with characters we could identify with. That’s how it was in the 1990s.
The troubles began with Friends.
Future historians will note this couch as the Beginning Of The End.
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Filed under Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Worst Of All
Experience vs. Evidence
In the next ten years, the entire experience of seeing a concert will have changed. Forever.
These things and infants are everywhere, and you complain about guns?
Hunter S. Thompson claimed that no Doors recording existed that captured the grandeur of Jim Morrison and company on stage. I believe this, although I never bore witness to the spectacle myself. Regardless, the only real evidence will always be the albums the Doors released. Thompson’s historic experience either died with him, or ended up on the wall behind his office chair. This is, needless to say, unfortunate. Continue reading
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions
The Joke Shop
Somehow, in 1987, I convinced my father to drive me to a joke shop in Paterson, New Jersey.
In the back, there’s a kiddie pool. JOKES, PEOPLE! JOKES!
The name of the place escapes me; it was unremarkable, something like “[X] Joke & Novelty”. Three years later, hunting for liquor and without proper ID, my friends and I were chased away from this very same area by a man swinging a chain over his head. Alongside Newark and Camden, Paterson is one of Jersey’s finest hellholes.
So getting my dad to drive me out there for gag items was quite the coup. I wanted a realistic fake faucet that could be attached to the forehead. I got much, much more. Continue reading
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions
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