Kickin' it Old School

I have to admit. I love ebay. I still think they owe me compensation for their “it” campaign, but that’s beside the point. ebay is like a worldwide yard sale. I remember being dragged along with my mother every Saturday morning as she went to various yard sales across Milan. I usually sat in the car as she rummaged through people’s used clothing and useless junk. Much like yard sales of yesteryear, ebay is full of other people’s useless junk. Where else can you find someone’s ghost or potato chips shaped like Elvis? The truth is that you really can find pretty much anything on ebay.

To a newcomer, it is very easy to become addicted to ebay and become broke in the process. Part of the fascination is the ability to find items of our youth. I recently viewed a Six Million Dollar Man action figure that was going for around $700. Of course, I was guilty of searching for lost pieces of my childhood when I conducted the search for the action figure, but I never dreamed that it would be worth so much. I’ll never forget when I decided to get rid of my Steve Austin (the Six Million Dollar Man, not the wrestler) doll. I had decided that it was time to grow up and I wearily threw the doll and accessories in the trash. In reality, I was in the 11th grade. I had to at least try to grow up. I quickly replaced it though with a 13” action figure of BA Baracus, the Mr. T character on The A Team. Bionic or not, Steve Austin would have never stood a chance against Mr. T. I pity the fool that would even try.

After finding such items on ebay, it makes me reminisce about “the way things used to be.” After becoming disgusted at my daughters constantly texting during dinner, I informed them that I was going to transform the house “old school.” I’m talking a console TV and the works. It was a happy thought, but one that will never become a fruition. I can’t help it. Sometimes, I just become disgusted with today’s culture.

Take text messaging, for example. What’s the point? My daughters can text a sentence faster than I can speak it. Once, my supervisor had texted me while my wife and I were out to eat. I began replying, but was finally warned by my wife that my food was getting cold after 20 minutes. My daughters told me to use T9. I thought they were talking about a new Terminator movie or something. What the heck is T9? I figure that phone with a keyboard is the only way to go. My oldest daughter recently got a touch screen phone that includes a virtual keyboard. She hates it! She had rather use the T9 method. Go figure.

Anyway, there are aspects of today’s culture that I can’t fathom. Rap music is another example. When I was growing up, rap music was in its infancy. Run DMC, Kurtis Blow, and Whodini made an alternative style of music that quickly became a phenomenon. Today’s rap is not music at all. How many times can you say “Haaay… Hoooo, Haaay….. Hoooo” anyway? What it is is a bunch of wannabe “gangstas” (packaged and gimmicked by recording labels) promoting nonsensical lyrics to sell CDs, clothing, and anything else that they can stick their name to. In reality, the whole East Coast vs West Coast feud that got 2 Pac and Biggie Smalls killed was fabricated by 2 Pac to sell more records. Marshall Mathers is no thug. 8 Mile sucked! Vanilla Ice had more talent than that fake.

On a side note, I once wrote a rap song in the 9th grade. Weird Al was big at the time, so I wrote a parody of Beat It called Chew It. The school was planning on spotlighting some of its talented students during a pseudo-talent show. A friend of mine who had a promising recording career promised that he would sing it in front of the entire school body. I was mad when he finished his set without playing my song. Now that I look back, I understand that he was just being nice when he told me that he’d sing it. “Have some more Copenhagen, have some more Skoal. It doesn’t matter if it’s new or old.” I actually expected him to sing that. Although he never recorded Chew It, my friend went on to a successful career in radio. You might know him better as Radio Rasheed of Kix 96.

Back to the matter at hand, TV is another area that simply promotes a decrepit culture. Whatever happened to Leave it to Beaver or the Brady Bunch? My wife and daughters’ favorite show is the Rock of Love. I was a huge Poison fan back in the day, but seeing Brett Michael’s bloated, plastic face attempting to find love with girls that Larry Flynt wouldn’t even approve of makes me sick. No to mention the hair extensions. Let’s be real here. The guy’s almost 50. He has to wear fake hair to make it look like he’s still a rocker. Pathetic. I can’t even listen to a Poison song anymore. At least C.C. Deville has a little dignity. He freely admits that he is a recovering alcoholic and is trying to begin a new life by moving on. Besides, who can forget that guitar riff at the beginning of “Talk Dirty to Me”. He was probably the real leader. Then again, Brett did make that tape with Pam Anderson. She's not much different than the ditzy, skanky women on Rock of Love, though.

A sign of real change is the difference in video games now and when I grew up. We actually had the old Pong game back in the 70s. From there, I graduated to Atari. Atari will always rule no matter what new technology they discover. You’ll probably be able to walk right into the TV with the next wave of video games (anyone remember Tron?). Truth is, I pretty much retired after the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. The newer games required 789 different combinations of 4 buttons to perform one move. I’ll always be a Pac Man and Dig Dug junkie. I still remember the lyrics of the “Pac Man Fever” top 40 song in the early 80s (sad, very sad I know).

I guess as each generation gets older, they always think that the younger generation is out of control. Heck, the elder generation wanted to ban Elvis when he first started. As much as I love Elvis, we might be better off had they been successful. If he hadn’t swiveled them damn hips, we might not be in the shape we are today. Everyone should have some scapegoat. Clinton had El Nino. Everyone knows that Katrina was Bush’s fault. Why not blame Elvis?

The truth is that maybe everything wasn’t that much better when we were kids. Maybe we had such fond memories of childhood because we hadn’t been exposed to the real world yet. Maybe we just mature. I was tremendously disappointed after viewing a Harlem Globetrotters event. My daughters had never heard of them and I wanted them to experience the spectacle that I witnessed as a kid. For some reason, it wasn’t the same. As a kid, I didn’t see the obviously choreographed moves for what they were. I only saw the world famous Globetrotters performing amazing feats.
Of course you will grow older and hopefully mature, but the key is never losing that innocence you had as a child. As Bob Dylan once said, “The Times They Are A-Changin.” As I used to repeat to myself over and over, “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R Us Kid.”