we live in such a different world than that of our parents. I know this is in no way a revelation and it’s been discussed to death, but I wanna discuss it some more anyway.
mostly when this topic is brought up it’s all about technology, or the state of society. and yes, these things are all true to some extent. computers and the internet make daily life much different than it was before. the dewey decimal system, for example, is no longer all that important to learn if you don’t plan to be a librarian. I know i chose something inane to point to as my example, but that’s pretty much where this thought process is going. so get used to it.
i was listening to a podcast (lets ignore for the moment that i was listening to a podcast, and not a radio broadcast. or that I’m posting this in a blog and not to my private little journal. and that I’m typing it on a bluetooth keyboard connected wirelessly to my cell phone) and they were talking about movies and stuff, because it was a podcast about movies called the triple feature. I’ll plug it here because i think these guys are at the point in their careers where even the nonexistent publicity this blog generates is noteworthy. it’s called the triple feature, and it’s weekly monday night live broadcast by three guys who do movie webcomics. I’ll put all the urls at the bottom of the post. anyway, they got onto the question of what order they plan to show star wars to their kids. 1-6, or 4-6 and then 1-3 like the rest of us saw it.
okay... well i think i saw it 1-6. not sure i actually bothered watching 4-6 all the way through. i’m not really a fan. but that’s not the point. from now on kids are growing up knowing star wars not as the holy trilogy, but as this six part thing.
i mean... that’s a little hard to grasp onto for me. maybe not that in particular, since star wars was never a big part of my life, but other little things like that fascinate me. my parents grew up in a time where "I’ll be back," simply meant that someone was going away and they would return. and it was not said in a stupid austrian accent. Michael Jordan would one day be the Michael Jordan of basketball, instead of saying that kobe might possibly be the next michael jordan, or david beckham is the michael jordan of soccer. the beatles were new and exciting; not the cornerstone of music as we know it today. (seriously... their influence is in pretty much any modern music, whether the artists know it or not)
i can fathom life without video games or cable television or internet or cell phones. but was there really life before full house and saved by the bell? those things have always just been there. there was really a time when they weren’t? also, there’s always a number after the superbowl. what was it like to live in a superbowlless world?
i think there is going to be less and less of that as time goes on. there are some things that seemingly all kids are in to. like pokemon and power rangers and hannah montana. and so the kids that were all that age at that time will have a fad that they all share and look back on fondly. and then they’ll be bastardized into multimillion (or billion, in the future) dollar movies a la transformers. but i foresee less and less all encompassing phenomena as time goes. i don’t think there will be another beatles. the entire world is not likely to be behind one band in that way ever again. and there is no longer a tv show that absolutely everyone watches every week. the closest we have is American Idol, and even that doesn’t get the same audience that the last episode of MASH got. there are so many choices now, and no many different niche audiences, that a global phenomenon is just no longer super likely.
i would say that maybe video games will one day bridge that gap, but that’s not true either. even a game like halo doesn’t have the mass appeal that something like space invaders had. everyone played some space invaders. even tetris.
but i seem to have wandered from my point a little. not that i necessarily had a point. i wasn’t presenting and defending an argument (even though i suppose i ended up doing that) but rather just saying "You know... there was a time when ’rock and roll’ was a genre that didn’t need to be subdivided" sort of thing.
on that note: There are oldies stations, and they play the golden oldies. what type of music will oldies stations play in twenty years? pop? rap? what’s the defining genre of or generation?
i grew up watching nick at nite. it was i love lucy and mr ed and get smart. (i’m cautiously looking forward to the get smart movie... it looks a bit too slapstick. and i didn’t hear any of the catch phrases in the trailer.) now if you turn on nick at nite it’s full house and roseanne and fresh prince. that’s classic television now. it was just yesterday that it was tgif.
i know there was other stuff i wanted to talk about. i wanted to talk about the moment of wonderwall in rock band that just completely blew me away. i tried explaining it in an email to jess (who, if she’s reading this, has yet to write me back by the way) and i just wasn’t able to do it justice. so i don’t think i’ll try again. but i think i’ll be able to relate that song to that moment from now on instead of to stacy, which is a good thing. it’s a pretty song.
i’m sure there were other things that i wanted to discuss, but they were fleeting. like this topic i settled on. if i hadn’t decided to actually come out here and type it up tonight, i never would have remembered to another day.
so, in closing, i’ll post the urls. check out the triple feature and related comics if you’re a movie fan. they’ve got all the spectrums covered quite nicely actually... there’s a movie snob, a guy who just enjoys total crap, and the guy who sort of goes both ways.
i tend to agree with joe (he loves crappy movies) that’s the only positive thing i can derive from my time with stacy, is an appreciation for stuff that really isn’t good.
some stuff just isn’t supposed to be good. it’s just supposed to be entertaining crap. or pull at your heartstrings crap. it’s nice to be able to enjoy crappy movies for what the are instead of pointing out all the reasons they are bad.
don’t get me wrong though... if they fail to entertain or to be funny or whatever, then they are a bad crappy movie.
EDIT:
I forgot to post the URLs... I was supposed to do that in post.
The Triple Feature , Theater Hopper , Multiplex , Joe Loves Crappy Movies
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