Half a Century of Thoughts -- part three (the 80s)

The 80s were seriously weird. We recently re-watched Working Girl ('88), and I was amazed at just how big the hair was in that movie. I think it added a foot to Joan Cusack's height. And I'm not even going to talk about her eye shadow. Look, I lived through the 80s, and I was still amazed. The hair, the shoulder pads (what the fuck was up with the shoulder pads!?!?), the makeup...

And I'm not even going to go into the clothing trends. Nope, not gonna touch it. Well, other than the aforementioned shoulder pads.

The problem with the 80s is that it was a somewhat schizophrenic decade, marked by both an unparalleled optimism about the future (we had space shuttles!) and a certainty that that future would never arrive (space shuttles blow up). This contrast is probably showcased best in the song by Timbuk 3, "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades."


In case you didn't know, the future's so bright in the song due to the coming nuclear holocaust, not because everything was coming up roses. Unless those roses were going to glow in the dark and have radioactive poison in their thorns. I mean, at Christmas one year during middle school, my English class won the door design contest for our version of "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas," the brainchild of a friend of mine and I as we sang, "I'm dreaming of a nuclear winter..."
And that hopelessly dim view of the future won the design contest of what was supposed to be the happiest time of the year.

That should tell you something.

I'm gonna tell you: It's difficult to be so optimistic and, yet, so pessimistic about the future at the same time. But we were. We both believed that science would be the salvation of the future and that we were all going to die in a nuclear holocaust before that could happen. Remember War Games?

And here's the thing: There was a kind of general understanding -- an agreement, if you will -- between Gen X and... whoever (not the Boomers) that if we could just get past the imminent doom that things would get better. We would harness science and step boldly into the future.
For real this time.

But, then, there were the Boomers, who, as a generational body (I'm not talking about specific individuals) believe only in self-indulgence, personified in our current "president" (#fakepresident), who derailed everything in the name of profit. After all, why build anything for the future (as their parents had and their parents had) when they wouldn't be around to enjoy it. Eat it all now. Eat the world. Leave nothing for anyone else. Ever.

Of course, we didn't realize that's how it was at first. We got through the 80s, the Berlin wall came down, nukes were taken off the table. The jet packs and flying cars were coming...

The problem was that every time the Boomers had a chance to do something good for the world, they chose, instead, to do something bad which would allow them to make money. All you have to do is look at what Trump (#fakepresident) has done since he got into office to see how all of this has played out. He is the epitome of Boomers and self-indulgence.

It's like coming home from school and finding out that your mother has given away your comic book collection, all of which were bought with your own very hard earned money (it was difficult, at seven, to find other people who would give you jobs to do since your own parents wouldn't give you an allowance or any way of earning money). And her only reason? Basically, she felt like it. Someone else showed an interest in them, so she gave them away.

Or, even worse, when you've spent hours and hours and hours making something and come home to find that your mom has come into your room and thrown it away. Because.
There's something in someone who would do such thing (either thing) that is just about causing pain to someone else. Like it's a zero-sum game. If someone else is happy, they are taking away from my happiness, so I need to do something to make them sad.

For some reason, Boomers have an outlook that says that life is a zero-sum game and they can't win until and unless they make everyone else lose.
I imagine that it's a sad existence for them, which is why they are so busy trying to make it a sad existence for everyone else.

And this is where I am, back in the 80s. All of the very worst parts of the 80s have sprung back into existence with the added bonus of environmental collapse.
It's like we haven't learned anything.
Or, well, the Boomers haven't, at any rate. Especially the old, white male Boomers.
You will never find a more disgusting hive of scum and villainy.

I Never Had Big HAIR

My daughter's in choir this year. A few nights ago, they had this big concert performance thing with the other high schools in the city where we live. Mostly, the choirs sing the kinds of songs you'd expect high school choirs to sing: old songs, frequently religious in nature, that sound very somber and serious. Mostly, it's uninspired, safe choices, but that's the way these things go, right?

Don't get me wrong, there are exceptions even when the school is staying within the paradigm, but, generally speaking, the music isn't very... exciting.

However! One of the schools did a whole 80s-themed set with music by the likes of Tears for Fears and Queen. It was a lot of fun, and the kids even dressed in (mostly) 80s styles. The one thing they didn't get right? The HAIR! Not a single one of them had appropriate 80s HAIR!

Now, look, I get it: 80s HAIR takes a certain amount of commitment, possibly more than is appropriate to ask of a high school student for a single evening's performance, but I think it would have taken their performance up another level.

But, then, who am I to talk? I never had 80s hair.

Hey! It's not my fault! My hair was already thinning by the time I was 15, and you can see the progression of my hair loss in my student IDs/yearbook photos. No, I can't show them to you. For one thing, I only have one of my yearbooks (and that not exactly on purpose), and, though I still have my student IDs (at least, I'm pretty sure I do), I have no idea where they are in the catastrophe of boxes that is my garage. (If you want to buy any of my old collectible stuff, make sure you check out my eBay auctions!)

At any rate, the whole HAIR thing got me to thinking... And I kind of wish I had an old 80s photo of me with big HAIR to post: But do I really? Okay, no, not really. Don't get me wrong; if I had one, I would post it, but, alas...

Oh! But the HAIR thing got me thinking; I'm just not sure about what. How weird things were in the 80s? Where things actually weird in the 80s? Would I go back and re-live the 80s and high school if I could? The answer to that used to always be "no fucking way," but I've been rethinking that a bit lately. Not because I would want to go back to the 80s for its own sake, but it's clear to me now that the 80s was when we really started to go off the rails as a nation. Reagan's presidency was a disaster and set up for so much of what is going on today. So, yeah, I would probably choose to do that all over again just so that I could be more politically aware at a younger age and start working then to stop what is happening now.

And, well, opt out of "christianity" at an age where I could have been saved from "christianity" and its harmful effects.

So, anyway, one of the songs that choir sang was "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," and that also got me thinking. I mean, would I want to rule the world? At this point, oh, absolutely! Which I never would have said when I was younger. Or even a few years ago. So, I thought, hey! I'll write a post about that in relation to the song! I mean, that would be cool, right? But...

The problem arose when I looked up the lyrics to the song... What the fuck? What does any of that even mean? Which reminded that I have actually looked up those lyrics before and had the same thought. Other than the line, "Everybody wants to rule the world," which is pretty self-explanatory, the rest of the song is nearly meaningless phrases joined together by... nothing. And maybe that's what the 80s were like? Anyway... Because it's probably still a good song, here you go: