Remember the good old days of... last week?

Let's start with the song Automatic, by Miranda Lambert. I've probably pounded to death how much I like and relate to this song, so I'm not focusing on that. The question is, WHY do I miss making mixtapes off the radio? The sound quality was atrocious, the dj always cut into the song, and sometimes you had to wait up all night for them to play the song you wanted. Why the hell is iTunes NOT better than that??

The answer is, it is better. In every way except you can't draw little heart doodles on the label. Miranda's point is, things that take more effort give you a greater sense of accomplishment than things that come easy. They have more personal value. And I don't know anyone who would argue that. But why do I have such nostalgia for things that are less convenient? Isn't that sort of, I dunno, crazy?

Why do I wish I still had a VCR, and my little rows of alphabetized cassettes on a shelf and even a record player?* Is it because they're somehow more real, more present than digital things? Is it because life was simpler back then, if not more convenient, and I love me some simplicity? Well, I think it's all those things, but it's also just the giant Snuggie that is nostalgia. Because if I really wanted to, I could go out and buy a VCR and all my favorite 80s movies on tape, I could rebuy all my Madonna and Go-Go's cassettes, god knows they'd be cheap enough. I could certainly buy a record player, that's even a thing that people do. I think. But I don't, because I know it wouldn't be the same as when viewed through nostalgia goggles, and I don't want to ruin that. Everyone has "good old days," fuck, today will be someone's "good old days," and if that thought isn't enough to make you want to unplug everything and run screaming into the woods, I don't know what is.

*having popular music on vinyl predates me, the only vinyl I owned was the Smurfs and songs about choo-choo trains. But vinyl is the one "outdated" medium I would consider owning now, because that earthy scratch of a record is just so inviting and intrinsic to music. Which is why the sound has been reproduced digitally many times.

But here's the other thing I've noticed, the thing that actually scares me and why I'm often so resistant to newness and change. Now there have been always been catalysts that have caused sudden, drastic shifts in popular culture. Movies. Television. Rock music, one of the single most sweeping and amazing changes to ever happen culturally. I mean, one day everyone was listening to Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney (yes, I totally googled that) and then Rock Around the Clock came out and it was like BLAM! Once rock hit, it just dominated. I wasn't around then obviously, but the billboard charts tell the story. Oh yeah, the billboard charts actually meant doodley-shit back then, too.

And rock, in varying incarnations, was pretty huge for the next 50 years. From Bill Haley and Elvis to the Beatles and Stones to Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple to Journey and Rush to Bon Jovi and Metallica to Nirvana and Soundgarden to the Killers and the White Stripes. Whew. AND SCREW YOU NICKLEBACK.

Did Nickleback kill rock? That's a discussion for another time. From what I can see, rock and roll has been replaced by computer music. Tom Petty said all this very eloquently in an article so I'm not going to dwell on it. What I'm talking about is the sudden, rapid change in culture that happened in the 2000s, and why I feel it's having a negative impact. (Unlike the positive impact I think rock music, tv, etc. had on culture for the most part.)

I grew up in the 80s. I love 80s music, especially the early and middle parts of the decade. The late 80s actually sucked for popular music, which is why I got into "college rock" and, eventually, country. I loved a lot of 90s music. Basically I was into any music that someone of my generation would be expected to be into, from Madonna to REM to Nirvana to Garth Brooks. I was into ALL of it, not just one genre. But, I was also really really into my PARENTS' generation's music. I LOVED 50s music, from the first note of Rock Around the Clock to the smoky romanticness of The Platters. I loved really popular stuff like Elvis and Buddy Holly and I found some kind of obscure stuff from back then I enjoyed too.



How the hell many people of my generation would know this? I freaking LOVE this, for the record. How about this early 60s gem?



There's a more famous version of that by the Dave Clark Five, which is also wonderful and a bit more rockin', but I slightly prefer this original version. Anyway, I'm a huge music dork. That's beside the point. The point is, the 50s and 60s are so far removed from me, that by modern standards it makes no sense for me to relate them musically. But I do, and I don't know anyone from my generation and even younger that doesn't like at least some music from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. There was crap then like there's crap now, but holy crap there was less of it and the classics from back then were just that. TIMELESS. So this 80s/90s girl loves 50s/60s/70s music as though it were my own. You could just say, well that music was really GOOD. And it was. I mean, "The Beatles were GOOD" is not exactly stunning musical commentary. So what else?

Skip to today, or maybe like the mid-2000s. Whenever people stopped listening to the Killers and started listening to no-talent crap like Jason Derulo and the Pussycat Dolls. (Jesus Christ, if I had to pick one least favorite artist of all time, it would have to be the Pussycat Dolls. Even more so than Britney Spears. Both represent everything I hate, music that is both morally and musically bankrupt, but PCD was like having multiple Britney Spearses simpering at you. EURRRRRGGGHHH.) That horrible little time in music when rock let out a sad death rattle (that's the sound of Fall Out Boy, by the way), and country started veering dangerously into stupid (which has of course come to full fruition).

So we're talking about a 10-year window in music here, why is that such a big deal? Well, because I hardly like any popular music anymore, not pop, country, anything. I don't relate to it. 1955 I relate to, but 2015 not at all. You see the problem here? I refuse to believe it's because I've aged 10 years. I've always been very open to music, I LOVE music and I want it to be happy! I even liked mainstream rap at first, before it decided to get all stupid and misogynistic and violent and gross. No, the problem is, TIME SHOULDN'T MOVE THIS FAST. Soon we'll no longer be measuring things by decades but by years. Months. "Ah, November of 2018, what a great time that was!"

I think this is why more and more people are putting on their nostalgia goggles these days, and they're doing it younger and younger. We need to slow down with all the electronic everything. It's desensitizing. It's disconcerting. It's dehumanizing. Some of it is fine, but please don't let it take over everything so fast, just because it's easier and today's kids don't know any better. That sells everyone out short. In this 10 year window, I feel like Chef Boyardee music and CGI and insane amounts of social media have become like kudzu. It completely took over the landscape.

Agh no, my HOUSE! I was using that!

Just remember, as I so eloquently wrote a few years ago, STUFF SHOULD SMELL LIKE SOMETHING. Is it any coincidence that smell is so intrinsically tied into memories and nostalgia? Stuff should also FEEL like something, like you can hold it in your actual hand. Senses are part of how infants learn to relate to the world, and if half of our senses fall into misuse, what does that make us?

RIP bakeries, the latest casualty of crap

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/independent-bakeries-are-a-dying-breed-185447965.html

Ha! I knew it.

"Families used to come by Sapienza’s shop and order a pound of biscotti or cookies to take home for the week, never questioning whether they had any trans fat or contained gluten, a wheat protein that gives dough its elasticity. These days, one in four U.S. households report at least one family member who eats gluten-free products, despite the fact that only 1% of Americans are considered to be allergic to it."

People are sheep. The end.

I love traditional bakeries. I was sad to read my favorite Italian bakery in Somerville shut down a few years ago. At least I was able to go for cannolis a few last times when I was in the area. Screw you Starbucks, designer cupcakes, and people who must be "gluten-free" despite not being allergic to it.

Somehow, everything I write is interconnected. The death of good. Is there any way back from this? All I want is real music, real food, real news and a real life not lived on fucking Instagram. And trees. Lots of 'em.

See, I just want everything back. That old orange flowered sofa? I want that back. The coffee table that looked like tree bark. The wagon wheel things out in the yard. THE YARD. The fruit trees. The rosebushes. The piano. The stereo with the giant speakers. All the ridiculous heavy wooden furniture that wasn't actually ridiculous at all because it was alive, it had a soul, not like today's disposable crap. I don't care how light it is, I WANT REAL FURNITURE. I want all my books back. And my cats. And my different colored socks. I want a big kitchen. I don't want an econo-life. I want things to smell like something, and feel like something. I want to goddamn FEEL again.

I miss my mom cooking and my dad reading the paper every morning. People laugh at tradition. WHY? It's what all our FREAKING HAPPY MEMORIES are made of!! And we've laughed it all away, like it's funny, like we can do better than those fools, but really, who wouldn't want to return there, to their safe place? Why have we bombed our own safe houses? Who are the fools now?

If there's one lyric I not only wish I'd written but feel like I could have written it's, "If I had a billion dollars, I'd buy back my old room." This is from an obscure 80s song they played late at night on MTV when I felt all rebellious! staying up past my bedtime. (I sincerely hope it was on a school night too.) What's funny is, I was a kid when that song came out and the line didn't mean anything to me, but it stuck with me all these years. And now it's gospel.

Life has pretty successfully kicked my ass. And all I want is to go back to my couch fort. I could live there, there was always room for snacks. And a cat.

Wow... http://www.upworthy.com/the-real-reason-they-still-play-mrs-robinson-on-the-radio

This pretty much sums up what I was trying to pinpoint in one of my previous entries, about why things seem so different from the 80s now in really awful ways. In handy chart form, even.

"In 1983, 90% of American media was owned by 50 companies. In 2011, that same 90% is owned by 6 companies."

Does that make anyone else feel like they got kicked in the gut by like, some sneaky financial ninja? When did this HAPPEN to us? Why did we LET it? Did we even have a choice? And do most people even care?

Well, I care. This doesn't just apply to media either. It goes right along with what I was saying about stores too, like Macy's, the big fish eating all the other fish. This much conglomeration is not good. And here is the proof, not that proof was needed. This kind of change is evident all around us if we pay attention, but it's scary to see it laid out in such stark terms. My childhood really was better in a lot of ways; it isn't just nostalgia. Our culture really is going to hell right under our noses.

I don't want my child to grow up in a world with only 6 things. :(

What I meant to do last night: watch a few videos on youtube, finish my graphic requests, go to bed

What I actually did: read sites about abandoned malls and theme parks til 5AM. Damn you, internet, for being so interesting!

It started as a simple search for my beloved Old Towne Mall dark ride, which I do periodically to see if anything popped up. I wonder if that mall was still around, unchanged, would it mean as much to me or would I just take it for granted? (You don't know what you've got til it's gone, etc.) I think it would, because I never got tired of going there as a child, and I'm even more of a kid now than I was when I was a kid. :D I love to visit the few places from my childhood that are still around as much as I ever did. So it's not just the nostalgia, it's something truly special and unique that's been lost to all but memories. There aren't even any pictures of the ride, at least not online or in my mom's huge collection.

I realize nostalgia is kind of a fluid thing - no matter when you grew up, you'll feel nostalgic for what was around at the time. People who grew up in the 50s or 60s probably find 80s nostalgia about as ridiculous as I'd find nostalgia for the sad state of today. But the 80s were my era, and it was still a simpler time. Bad things were afoot, like greed, drugs and rap music, but most of the music still sounded like music, the clothes were wonderfully naive in their attempt to be cool (and I loved the colors!), and we had movies like Ghostbusters, Back to the Future and Pretty in Pink. The 80s were fun. I look back and see them in amusement park lights and colors.

So I wonder, what would be nostalgic now? Will the kids of today one day be pining for the homogenous target-best-buy-wal-mart-old-navy-home-depot strip malls? Maybe they will, if that's all they know. But that's kind of sad. Even true nostalgia is being bought out. I mean...



which one of these is more interesting? Which one is more likely to capture a child's memories forever? Or an adult's, for that matter? Will kids today have the chance to dream of magical carousels and hazy, low budget dark rides? Or will all their memories be of video games? The world is... shrinking. And not in a fun way like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I read that the beautiful carousel still exists somewhere in the country, so that's something. But it should be in CA! That's its HOME, dammit.

Something cool I found that made me smile: http://irodephantasmagoria.blogspot.com/
This was another dark ride from my childhood. I remember this one much better because I was older when I rode it. We probably went to Bell's in Tulsa about three times, and I rode this ride twice every time. It had a big yellow school bus that would pop out and honk at you (AHHHH IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR US!!! every single time!) Bell's also had an awesome wooden roller coaster, called the Cyclone I think. So... I too rode Phantasmagoria! I never knew how to pronounce it. I still don't. But damn, what a cool ride.

Finding things like this is like finding little pieces of my childhood on the internet, pieces that other people I don't even know share. It's pretty awesome. But damn, 5AM comes too soon.

Soooooo

I was writing up a post entitled "the sweet sweet valley of sanity," about how things seem to be going to these ridiculous mountains of extremes and my search for, well, the sweet sweet valley of sanity. It occurred to me that I mostly write about stuff I don't like on here, and my only really "fun" posts are my T&T posts, which I also don't like but at least I can snark the crap out of. It's weird because I'm really not a negative person, more of a walking MST, taking life's absurdities with a sort of non-aggressive mocking stance.

The reasons for this negativity are my SA obviously, and how this place serves as a refuge when I'm feeling particularly wretched. Maybe not so fun to read, but therapeutic. But beyond that there is what I see as the growing negativity in the world, which was exacerbated by my ill-fated interest in politics. We have a generation coming up that relates to the world through text messages and tweets and I wonder, do they feel the world? Do they ever think about where they came from, what's around them? I see humans becoming more desensitized and less connected every day. The world is always changing, and there have been some fantastic advances in the last 30 years, socially and technologically, that I wouldn't change for anything. But there are also really noticeable and disturbing changes that have taken place since I was a child that I don't think are beneficial or even natural.

Chiefly ~ the strip mallification of America. We've always had chain stores and there's nothing wrong with them, but it wasn't always like this. Everywhere you go in this country it's exactly the same, the same handful of stores that have driven out the unique regional culture. I mean, the only way you can even tell where you are anymore is what kind of trees are growing there.* Sometimes I come upon one of these monstrosities and I feel claustrophobic, I actually can't breathe. These big companies are strangling the life out of this country, and nobody seems to care. I mean when I was a kid we shopped at the "big" stores sometimes, but we also shopped at other places for variety. I guess somewhere along the line, people stopped doing that. They said fuck it, I wanna get tires and chewing gum and lawn furniture at the same damn place, every single day, no surprises, no soul, no problem. In and out and back home to watch tv and go to bed for another day of supporting the endless grind. Do they ever wonder what else is out there? Do they ever remember how things used to be, what still lies beneath the plastic surface?

*on the bright side, at least there are still trees.

The thing is, I think most people forget their childhood. They disregard it as something to "move on from." And with each generation, even children have less and less true childhood wonder (the kind that isn't manufactured in Japan). I think adults should celebrate their childhoods without shame, not in a way that's dwelling on the past but keeping alive what's important and interesting NOW, and preserving it for the future. This is what we are losing, our sense of preservation. Somewhere along the line, everything started becoming disposable. This is not progress, this is waste.

So, I will write my sweet sweet valley of sanity post another time, and end with this before my next post of STUFF THAT MAKES ME HAPPY DAMMIT. The reason I'm becoming so enamored with abandoned places (and other people who appreciate them) is not only because it's fun and creepy and damn interesting to explore the past but because it makes me feel less alone in my sensibilities. Other people are drawn to something besides what's presented to them as a consumer, other people CARE. And mostly, to preserve these things in some way before they're swept away forever to become something soulless and counter-intuitive to humanity like an office park.

Sure, looking at cool things in a state of decay can be sad, but at least it's an interesting kind of sad. It makes you think. It makes you feel. And somehow, they seem more alive and less decayed than the Everytown Big Store Consumer Depots of Hell. The old remnants are somehow alive, their souls remain. They speak to me. I also find them beautiful and sometimes, oddly, positive. It's less about what's gone than what's still there, the ruins and the memories.

Maybe it's sad that exploring the past has become more appealing in some ways than the present, but one astute Youtube commenter said it best in a video entitled "Last Day at Kiddieland" (which is pretty much also the title of my life), about the closing of a beloved children's amusement park. From the description: "Started in 1929, the suburban Chicago Kiddieland survived the Great Depression, a World War and countless other challenges only to fall to a family dispute. One small branch of the family wanted to sell the land. The other, larger branch wanted to keep the park alive. Money won. Doesn't it always? Another big box retailer, a Wal-Mart or a Costco or something similar will replace Kiddieland..."

Commenter: you know....what made america, america is slowly dissapearing

Yeah... that's pretty much my whole post in one amazing sentence. Did that leave anyone else feeling gut-punched and winded like it did me? This is actually HAPPENING, and it's happening less and less slowly as we become more and more fast-paced and disposable and me me me and now now now and more more more. I mean, my favorite song "Big Yellow Taxi" was written in 1970. Before I was born. The warning signs were there even 40 years ago, but instead of paying attention we've just let more and more iconic things die. And for WHAT? For NOTHING! For profit, which means absolutely nothing in a world with nothing left to spend it on but... more profit. "If I die with the most crap, I win the world's biggest and most pointless game of Monopoly!"

These things that make up the fabric of our country are not things you trade in like a car or a computer. They don't need an upgrade, they're fine the way they are. And when they're gone, they're gone forever. And so is an important piece of who we are.

What makes humans, human is slowly disappearing.

I didn't think any man had referred to his spouse as "the wife" since about 1965. Apparently I was wrong. Ah T&T, it's like a little time capsule living among us. I almost find it charming, but that's probably because I hate pretty much everything about this fast-paced lookatme texting facebooking* uncaring about actual flesh and blood humans world. It also reminds me of The Starfighters MST ("I'm going home to The Wife." "We're going the have The Sex!") which is pure awesomeness. I don't really want to be called "the wife," though, so some good progress has been made. *nod*

*A particularly obnoxious side effect of this is making things into verbs that are not verbs. "I'll text you later!" "I'll facebook you!" My response: a very appropriate verb starting with "f", followed by "you." At exactly what point did people lose the ability to recognize they're being douchebags? We used to have a douchebag filter; everyone knew who the douchebags were and the douchebags didn't care, because they're douchebags. See:



Consider your future carefully, America. One of these things is enough.

But now the douchebags are everybody, or at least the majority of everybody. It all happened so fast, this douchebagification, we hardly knew what hit us. Our only hope is that humans' natural trigger that lets them know they're being douchebags will eventually kick in, and they'll go "Omigod what was I thinking! I'm so embarrassed!" And thus will "I'll text you" go the way of Hammer pants. But when I look at teenagers, I kinda lose hope. :/ I also kinda miss Hammer pants.

Thinking about teenagers makes me think about skinny jeans, which could pretty much be called douchebag jeans, and how much I loathe them and everyone who wears them. Teenage girls in skinny jeans always have myspace hair and perma-bitchface and walk like they're saying "get the fuck outta my way, I'm wearing skinny jeans and you're not." Teenage boys in skinny jeans... well, if a boy wants to experiment with different things he should be able to. Free to be you and me and all that. But guys in skinny jeans? DOUCHEBAGS. ACROSS THE BOARD. Gay, straight, bi, it doesn't matter. THEY ARE COOLER THAN YOU, AND THEY NEED YOU TO BE AWARE OF THAT FACT AT ALL TIMES.

My impression of every teenager today: skinny jeans, too-tight t-shirt with something "you've probably never heard of" on it, myspace hair (which should have died along with myspace), a piercing located somewhere on their face to prove they're unique, just like everybody else, a perma-snooty look or smirk, and a text-message thingy that you would have to PHYSICALLY AMPUTATE FROM THEIR HAND. They text their friend who is sitting right next to them because duh, that's so much cooler than talking to them. They are known to burst into loud laughter that clearly signifies they are in on the joke, and you are not. They travel in packs. They hate you. They hate your cousin, and they hate your grandma. And they're gonna breed and make little versions of themselves that are gonna get progressively worse. I'm gonna stop now before I get hopelessly depressed and decide I want to homeschool my children, or possibly shrink wrap them.





















Hello! My name is Douchebag McGee.

Hi. Your hair and very existence fill me with possibly irrational rage. :(






















Yours too. Unless you are the same person. I can't really tell. Also? I hope your face gets stuck in that retarded myspace pose FOREVER. Also? I hope you get eaten by wolverines.

(If you ever want to hate the world for a while, try googling "myspace hair and skinny jeans." Oy. :/)

If I had a billion dollars, I'd buy back my old room.

This pretty much sums up my life lately. I feel so lost, and want to return to what's familiar. But sadly that was lost a long time ago. The town I grew up in is still pretty much the same, the house I grew up in is still there, but someone else lives in it. They have for a long time. Parents never consult the kids when they sell off their childhoods. Now I want it back. I feel like everything that's mine is still there, and everything that came after is fake. This probably comes from not having kids of my own yet and wanting them so badly. Their childhood will replace my lost one, and enrich who I am now to the point that maybe I feel real again. And I won't be so quick to sell theirs to the highest bidder, just in case they want to come back and visit. Reclaim that little piece of who they are whenever they start feeling lost in the foreign, adult world.

I grew up on a quiet, modest suburban street. Kids rode their bikes, dads watered the lawn, moms baked cookies in the kitchen. All the yards had fruit trees. You could walk almost anywhere in the town from my house, to the various parks and swimming pools, to the stores downtown, to the library, to school, to your friends' houses and back home again. It never felt anything but safe doing that, and no it wasn't the 1950s. Your house was... your house, part of who you were, not some transitive residence. You knew every nook and cranny. It was home.

I used to think this Everywhere USA of my childhood was cheesy, I took it for granted the way that only someone who "has" can. When everything is familiar, you crave unfamiliar. You feel like something must be wrong if you feel so content. Surely, there must be more to life than this!

And probably for some people, there is more. For me, that was bliss, but the kind you don't know you've got til it's gone. Like the Big Yellow Taxi. Paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. When I hear that song, I automatically think that childhood is the paradise, and the parking lot everything that comes after. It makes me sad. But then I think, you can plant a garden, you can recreate paradise. That's the answer. What you have lost, give to your children. Make sure they never lose it. Childhood isn't something to be abandoned but something to be built on. "Home" is important because you are important. I've lived in enough disposable apartments to know, after a while you start feeling disposable yourself.

I just wanna go home.